On Monday, December 22, the Justice Department announced a lawsuit against Washington, D.C., challenging its ban on AR-15 rifles, along with some pistols and shotguns, and its registration requirement of firearms.
The complaint, known as United States of America v. District of Columbia, was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, and is signed by Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division. Ms. Dhillon now leads the newly announced Second Amendment Section of the DOJ, which has, to date, accumulated a record of 100% of pro-Second Amendment legal actions, including filing a brief in a major New Jersey AWB / mag ban case.
“This Civil Rights Division will defend American citizens from unconstitutional restrictions of commonly used firearms, in violation of their Second Amendment rights,” said Ms. Dhillon in a press release, adding, “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.”
The 11-page complaint sets the scene with the 2008 Heller victory noting that it “…recognized that law-abiding citizens have the right to possess arms protected under the Second Amendment inside the home for lawful purposes such as self-defense.”
The Council of the District of Columbia, the governing body of the capital, currently enforces a gun possession registration requirement in which citizens may only have guns that are registered. It has excluded the ability to register certain guns, creating a de facto ban on those guns, including AR-15s, along with some pistols and shotguns.
The complaint states that this “…denies law-abiding citizens the ability to register a wide variety of commonly used semi-automatic firearms, such as the Colt AR-15 series rifles, which is among the most popular of firearms in America, and a variety of other semi-automatic rifles and pistols that are in common use…”
“This case concerns much more than dormant, bad law. 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,” asserts the complaint.
This is the third major affirmative suit brought by the Justice Department against jurisdictions challenging Second Amendment related infringements. On December 16, the DOJ filed suit against the U.S. Virgin Islands for its permitting schemes and delays, and on September 30, Ms. Dhillon led the DOJ in filing a lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) for similar issues.
The DOJ is also soliciting plaintiffs for this and future cases:
If you are a current or prospective gun owner and believe you are being prevented from registering or owning a lawful firearm, please submit a complaint through https://www.justice.gov/crt/second-amendment-section.
