Trump sues Virginia over assault weapons ban 

RICHMOND, Va. (CN) —The Justice Department sued Virginia Wednesday just hours after the commonwealth’s ban on the sale and purchase of high-capacity semiautomatic weapons went into effect.

“The Constitution is not a suggestion, and the Second Amendment is not a second-class right,” Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a news release. “This Justice Department has done more to protect the Second Amendment than any administration in our nation’s history, and we will continue to do so whenever necessary.”

In the lawsuit, filed in a Richmond-based federal court, the government challenges a newly passed Virginia law that creates a Class 1 misdemeanor for anyone who imports, sells, manufactures, purchases or transfers what the commonwealth describes as assault firearms.

The law would apply to all firearms not designed to operate only with .22 caliber rimfire ammunition. The firearms must also have either a folding, telescoping or collapsible stock, a thumbhole stock or a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the rifle or a second handgrip.

The Justice Department argues the law fails under the Supreme Court’s analysis in its 2022 decision in NYSRPA v. Bruen. In Bruen, the justices established a two-prong test for determining whether firearm regulations pass constitutional muster. First, the Second Amendment must protect the conduct the state is regulating.

Second, states must show the regulation has a historical analog. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the Second Amendment protects the right of law-abiding Americans to possess and use weapons commonly used for lawful purposes.

“There is no historical tradition of banning arms in common use,” the Justice Department wrote in its complaint. “There cannot be the slightest question that millions of Americans have chosen to equip themselves with AR-15 style rifles, and they use those ordinary semiautomatic rifles for a variety of lawful purposes, including but not limited to self-defense.”

The Justice Department also criticized the lawmakers’ use of what it says is the pejorative term assault weapons.

“The term ‘assault firearm’ is not a technical term used in the firearms industry,” the Justice Department wrote in its complaint. “In the real world (as opposed to the fevered imaginations of some politicians), the rifles that the statute calls ‘assault firearms’ include ordinary semiautomatic rifles lawfully possessed and used by millions of law-abiding Americans.”

The Justice Department ultimately seeks declaratory judgment that the enforcement of the ban deprives Virginians of their Second Amendment rights. The feds also seek a preliminary block preventing enforcement of the law.

“On April 10, I promised Governor Spanberger that we would sue Virginia if she signed this unconstitutional weapons ban into law. I keep my promises,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Law-abiding Americans should not have to live under threat of criminal sanction for simply exercising their Second Amendment right to possess arms owned by millions of their fellow citizens.”

A spokesperson for Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones said the Democrat would defend the ban.

“The OAG will review the complaint and defend Virginia’s assault weapons ban against the Trump DOJ’s misuse of the Civil Rights Division,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “This commonsense law keeps Virginians safe, protects law enforcement and safeguards communities across the commonwealth.”

The Justice Department acknowledged the Fourth Circuit previously upheld a similar ban in Maryland in Bianchi v. Brown, but it argues the circuit wrongly decided the case. The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it would review semiautomatic bans in Illinois and Connecticut.

“The commonwealth is now spending its own resources defending an unconstitutional gun ban against the United States itself. That is where the Richmond Democrats’ agenda has led — into court, on the wrong side of the Constitution,” Terry Kilgore, minority leader for the House of Delegates, said in a statement. “House Republicans said this law could not stand. A Virginia court has already blocked it, and now the Justice Department agrees. It should be repealed.”

The lawsuit comes after judges in Washington and Lancaster counties granted injunctive relief to gun hobbyists, retailers and gun rights organizations, blocking the Virginia State Police and a handful of Commonwealth’s Attorneys from enforcing the law. The state cases focused on a 1971 provision of the Virginia Constitution enshrining the right to keep and bear arms. Former Virginia President James Madison drafted the Bill of Rights, which protects that right.

“Virginians can be justly proud of their centurieslong tradition of leadership in the cause of liberty,” the Justice Department wrote in its brief. “Sadly, however, that tradition was recently besmirched by the Virginia legislature’s enactment of SB749, a statute that infringes law-abiding Virginians’ fundamental right to keep and bear arms and thus violates the Second Amendment.”

The lawsuit marks the latest in a string of challenges to laws the Democratic-controlled General Assembly passed and Democratic Governor Abigail Spanberger signed into law. A federal judge blocked the state on Tuesday from enforcing a law that would prohibit U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials from wearing masks and require them to display identification.