Actually, the headline above isn’t entirely accurate. The Trace is troubled that the DOJ is defending the right to keep and bear arms, which is a right of we the people regardless of whether we’re currently exercising it.
The Everytown-affiliated website and its senior reporter Jennifer Mascia have released a new story for their anti-gun readers that offers a broad overview of the DOJ’s efforts to defend the right to keep and bear arms from abuses at the state and local level, though of course that’s not the way Mascia frames the issue.
Over the past year, the Civil Rights Division’s Second Amendment section has filed 10 lawsuits, launched one investigation, and reached one settlement, according to an analysis by The Trace.
Three of the suits — in Los Angeles, the Virgin Islands, and Minnesota — concern gun permit application delays. In Denver, Washington, D.C., and Virginia, the division is challenging restrictions on semiautomatic rifles. The division is also trying to overturn Colorado’s limits on the capacity of ammunition magazines, California’s ban on pistols that are susceptible to being converted into machine guns, and the prohibition on carrying guns in public in Montgomery County, Maryland. This month, the division sued San Jose, California, alleging that the city’s $1,600 application fee for gun carry permits is exorbitant.
“It is disquieting to think of the federal government acting on behalf of the gun lobby and a small minority of gun enthusiasts to pressure state and local governments to abandon reasonable measures,” said John Donohue, a law professor at Stanford University. “The Trump administration initiatives are burdening state and local efforts to reduce gun violence.”
If you ask me, it’s disgusting to know that a law professor believes a $1,600 concealed carry application fee is “reasonable.” And if the Trump administration is truly burdening state and local efforts to reduce gun violence, then why are homicides at their lowest level since at least 1950, and why is violent crime trending down as well?
None of the laws and practices that the Civil Rights Division is challenging are reasonable, which is why the division’s Second Amendment Section filed suit to begin with. They ban commonly owned firearms and magazines. They subject gun buyers to week-long delays in acquiring a firearm, and force concealed carry applicants to pay huge sums of money and wait for months on end before they can legally bear arms in public. And once they do have a license to carry, some of these laws prohibit them from carrying almost everywhere. It’s not unreasonable for the DOJ to challenge these violations of our civil rights. I only wish the Second Amendment Section had a bigger staff so the pace of filing new lawsuits was even faster than it is today.
If Mascia asked Donohue to explain why he believes the challenged provisions are so reasonable, she didn’t bother to share his response with readers. In fact, The Trace report doesn’t really offer up any real defense of the laws targeted by the Civil Rights Division. Instead, Mascia simply notes that “legal experts” (i.e. anti-gun attorneys and professors) The Trace previously spoke to have said “gun rights ‘have never been a focus’ of the Civil Rights Division, and that the division is abandoning its duty to fight for marginalized communities.”
Past failures don’t have to remain in place, and the Civil Rights Division is now doing what it should have been doing all along. The right to keep and bear arms is a civil right, and the DOJ is doing work of historic importance in protecting that right. The fact that anti-gunners like Donohue are upset over the DOJ’s actions is just a sign that the agency is on target, and hopefully the agency will give The Trace and folks like Donohue even more reason to complain going forward.
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