CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands — On Wednesday, September 2, the Justice Department expanded its existing lawsuit against the U.S. Virgin Islands in a sweeping amended complaint that challenges nearly every major gun-control measure still in force in the territory.
The filing builds on the affirmative suit first brought against the territory on December 16, 2025. To date, it is the broadest single Second Amendment legal action we are aware of from the Second Amendment Section of the Civil Rights Division, which is led by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon.
The 18-page amended complaint appears to rest on the department’s conclusion that VIPD has engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates Second Amendment rights well beyond the original inquiry into the territory’s permitting scheme.
“Recently, the United States learned that VIPD’s pattern or practice of unlawful conduct goes back literally decades to at least 2004 when they began arbitrarily enforcing firearms restrictions with absolutely no statutory authority to do so,” the complaint states.
The amended complaint targets the territory’s prohibition on transferring or selling firearms “manufactured to hold more than 15 rounds,” a restriction the United States says applies in particular to AR-15-style rifles.
Citing recent Third Circuit authority overturning New Jersey’s AR-15 ban, the complaint notes that such rifles are “plainly in common use” for lawful purposes and therefore constitutionally protected. It also challenges the territory’s bans on standard-capacity magazines and suppressors, arguing that “under the Bruen two-step test, firearm silencers are presumptively constitutionally protected.”
The Civil Rights Division is taking an unusually comprehensive approach in this case, adding claims against other Virgin Islands gun-control measures including:
- public-demonstration carry ban
- ban on carrying arms that are not handguns (long guns)
- storage requirements
- registration requirements
The United States is seeking to end what it describes as decades of enforcement that deprived individuals of constitutional rights, and it argues that simply stopping the challenged practices is not enough:
Furthermore, even if Defendants were to desist from one or more of the parts of VIPD’s Pattern or Practice of Law Enforcement Conduct, it would not change the fact that VIPD’s Pattern or Practice of Law Enforcement Conduct as a whole has existed for literally decades. Thus, Defendants would remain liable for equitable and declaratory relief.
You can track the DOJ’s legal actions on Second Amendment issues in our DOJ Second Amendment action tracker.
