The Department of Justice is threatening to sue the city of Denver over its ban on so-called assault weapons, but city officials say they’re prepared to defend the ban in court if necessary.
Last week Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon sent a letter to Mayor Mike Johnston and City Attorney Miko Brown warning that there would be legal consequences if the city doesn’t cease enforcement of its ban on “assault weapons”, which has been in place since 1989.
Dhillon vowed to file a federal lawsuit if the city did not enter into a consent decree acknowledging the unconstitutional nature of the city’s ordinance by 5 p.m. on May 5th, and it looks like the DOJ is going to take that step after the mayor publicly defended the ban on Monday.
“The Ordinance bans many weapons, including AR-15 style semiautomatic rifles,” the letter reads. “Law-abiding Americans own and use for lawful purposes literally tens of millions of AR-15 style rifles. Indeed, it is the most popular rifle in America. The city has banned an arm in common use for lawful purposes by law-abiding citizens. Therefore, the Ordinance violates the Second Amendment.”
City officials wholly rejected the DOJ’s stance in a response letter Monday.
“Your request is baseless, irresponsible and a clear overreach of the federal government’s power,” Brown wrote in the response.
It is, in fact, none of those things. Denver’s ban has hardly made the city a safer place. Between 2022 and 2022 the city recorded some of the highest homicide rates since 1981, and while 2025’s numbers were a significant improvement, the numbers are spiking again in 2026. As of late April, the city had recorded 18 homicides, which is a 50% increase from the same point in 2025.
What Denver’s ban has done is violate the Second Amendment rights of residents by denying them the opportunity to purchase and possess some of the most popular and commonly owned arms in the country. Those who lawfully possessed their “assault weapons” at the time the ordinance was adopted were grandfathered in, but since then no one else has been allowed to legally buy or keep one of the banned firearms in their home.
The DOJ Civil Rights Division’s threatened litigation isn’t baseless, because a fundamental civil right is being violated. It’s not irresponsible, because these arms are widely owned across the country and are rarely used in crime. And it’s certainly not an overreach of the federal government’s power to go after states or localities that are violating our fundamental rights, even if the DOJ hasn’t aggressively gone after state and local gun controls until now.
The Denver Post notes that in 1994 the Colorado Supreme Court upheld the ban, opining that there “can be no doubt that an ordinance intended to prevent crime, serves a legitimate government interest sufficiently strong to justify its enactment.” Under that logic, virtually any law would be upheld so long as the city claims it was enacted in the name of public safety.
The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected those arguments, though, starting with the Heller decision.
A second legal challenge was filed by the city itself after Colorado enacted firearms preemption in 2003.
Denver sued the state, saying the city should be allowed to enforce its ordinances under home rule. A Denver district court judge agreed with the city. The state took the matter to the Colorado Supreme Court, which in 2005 deadlocked on the issue.
That wasn’t a Second Amendment case, but more about home rule powers. It was also decided pre-Heller.
In a pro-ban pep rally held today, Mayor Johnson pointed out that courts across the country have upheld similar prohibitions, but that doesn’t mean the Tenth Circuit (or the Supreme Court) will do so. The Tenth Circuit recently struck down New Mexico’s 7-day waiting period on firearm transfers, so it’s already demonstrated a majority of justices can recognize at least one abuse of our right to keep and bear arms.
There is ongoing litigation against other local bans in Colorado at the district court level, but it’s possible that any suit filed by DOJ would be consolidated with those cases. If Dhillon follows through on her threat to sue, we shouldn’t have to wait too long to find out whether the case will stand on its own or join the legal challenges to other local bans that have been enacted since Colorado Democrats repealed the state’s preemption law.
I’m thrlled to see the DOJ take this step, and we’re likely to see more challenges to these kinds of bans when Virginia’s “assault firearm” prohibitions kick in on July 1. I’m still hopeful the Supreme Court will accept a hardware ban case this term, but Dhillon is ensuring that even if SCOTUS kicks the can down the road once more there are still plenty of cases in the legal pipeline going forward.
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