Feds sue DC over ban on most assault rifles

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Justice Department sued the District of Columbia on Monday, challenging its ban on a wide variety of commonly used semiautomatic firearms like the AR-15, arguing the rules “trample” the Second Amendment rights of citizens.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, picks up on a long-running campaign against the local D.C. Council’s stringent gun regulations that began in 2003.

In the nine-page filing, the Justice Department wants a federal judge to declare the city’s prohibition on the registration of AR-15s and all other firearms without an automatic firing mechanism unconstitutional.

Further, the government seeks a permanent injunction prohibiting the district from arresting or levying fines against individuals for possessing an AR-15 and other assault rifles, as well as an order for the district to enable and allow the registration of such firearms.

Richard Heller, a former special police officer, sued the district in 2003 to challenge provisions of the local Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975, which restricted residents from owning handguns and required all firearms, including rifles and shotguns, be kept unloaded and disassembled.

Heller argued the provisions violated his Second Amendment right to keep a functional firearm in his home without a license, and when it ultimately reached the Supreme Court, the high court agreed.

In its 2008 decision in *District of Columbia v. Heller,*the justices ruled 5-4 the provisions unconstitutional and, consequentially, found a degree of separation between the amendment’s two clauses, the first of which was long understood to limit the amendment to protect state militia’s rights to bear arms.

The Justice Department claims the district wrongfully denies law-abiding citizens the ability to register several popular pistols and semiautomatic rifles, a practice which fails to consider whether the prohibited weapon is “in common use today” or that law-abiding citizens may use the weapons under the Second Amendment.

“This case concerns much more than dormant, bad law,” the Justice Department says in its complaint. “It concerns the very real requirement that the DC defendants have acted and are continuing to act in blatant disregard to our Constitution and the rulings of our nation’s highest court. The United States of America brings this lawsuit to protect the rights that have been guaranteed for 234 years and which the Supreme Court has explicitly reaffirmed several times over the last two decades.”

The Justice Department further pointed to the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which held that gun restrictions are constitutional only if there is a tradition of a similar regulation in U.S. history.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement Monday that the lawsuit underscores the administration “ironclad commitment” to protecting the Second Amendment.

“Washington, D.C.’s ban on the some of America’s most popular firearms is an unconstitutional infringement on the Second Amendment — living in our nation’s capital should not preclude law-abiding citizens from exercising their fundamental constitutional right to keep and bear arms,” Bondi said.

The lawsuit comes three days after Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith, one of the named defendants, made a fiery exit speech before she resigns her post on Dec. 31. In the speech she rejected accusations that the department had underreported crime data and said “eff you” to her so-called haters.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser named Jeffrey Carroll, the Metropolitan Police Department’s second-in-command, to serve as interim police chief upon Smith’s official departure.

The Justice Department also named the MPD as a defendant.

In a statement, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said the case was brought by the new Second Amendment Section within the department’s Civil Rights Division.

“The newly established Second Amendment section filed this lawsuit to ensure that the very rights D.C. resident Mr. Heller secured 17 years ago are enforced today — and that all law-abiding citizens seeking to own protected firearms for lawful purposes may do so,” Dhillon said.

The Justice Department also petitioned any current or prospective gun owners in the district to submit a civil rights complaint if they believe they are “being prevented from registering or owning a lawful firearm.”

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