On Friday, April 10, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, representing the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, sent a letter to Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger stating that the federal government is prepared to sue the state if it signs bills that “unconstitutionally limit law-abiding Americans’ individual right to bear arms.”
The historic move from the Department of Justice is the first of its kind in the 68-year history of the Civil Rights Division, which has never before affirmatively defended Second Amendment rights through legal action prior to the establishment of the Second Amendment Section in 2025 under Harmeet Dhillon, subsequent to President Trump’s February 2025 executive order to Protect the Second Amendment.
Reactions from the Second Amendment community were largely positive, with thousands of posts on X supporting the measure. “This is the kind of federal backup gun owners have been looking for,” stated the National Association for Gun Rights in a response post.
The letter from Ms. Dhillon “provides formal notice that the Civil Rights Division will commence litigation,” and specifically calls out SB749, the Virginia bill that would effectively ban residents from owning America’s most popular firearm, the AR-15. The bill has passed both houses of the Virginia legislature and sits on the governor’s desk, awaiting her signature.
On Friday, the governor signed a handful of bills into law, including two gun control measures.
“The Second Amendment protects the rights of law-abiding citizens to own and use AR-15 style semiautomatic rifles for lawful purposes,” states Ms. Dhillon in the letter, going on to add, “This Civil Rights Division will seek to enjoin any attempt to infringe the right of law-abiding Virginians to acquire constitutionally protected arms that are possessed by literally tens of millions of Americans.”
The letter also specifically addresses the state’s storage requirements in HB 871, which effectively disarm residents in their own homes, calling the measure “unconstitutional.”
The letter states that the DOJ is aware of the more than 20 gun control measures passed by the Virginia Assembly stating, “There are also other provisions contained in those bills that otherwise prevent lawful use of constitutionally protected arms for self-defense,” and closes with the warning, “I urge you to reconsider allowing any bill that would infringe on the lawful use of protected firearms by law-abiding citizens to become law.”
To date, the Virginia governor has not responded to the letter, but her publicly stated intentions to pass gun control have set the stage for a major confrontation on civil rights issues between a state and the federal government.
Other DOJ Affirmative Actions
Under Ms. Dhillon’s leadership of the Second Amendment Section, the Justice Department has initiated several affirmative legal actions, including suing the District of Columbia over its AR-15 ban, suing California over its permitting scheme, and suing the U.S. Virgin Islands over its permitting delays.
On April 2, former Attorney General Pam Bondi stated that she was stepping down and Todd Blanche had been appointed as acting Attorney General. Although the Justice Department under Bondi took more pro-Second Amendment actions than previous administrations, her leadership was widely criticized from the time of her appointment, notably for her anti-gun views and her legal record as Attorney General of Florida, in addition to defending certain gun control measures during her tenure as head of the DOJ, like the National Firearms Act. This publication has tracked all of the major Second Amendment-related legal actions by the Department of Justice under Bondi in a comprehensive timeline.
