When the Supreme Court clarified the constitutional standard governing gun-control measures in 2022, a number of enduring limitations on the right to bear arms suddenly appeared vulnerable. Pro-gun groups seized the moment, pursuing one lawsuit after another in clashes that frequently pitted them against the Biden administration.
Those factions now find a strong ally in a Trump administration that has brought multiple lawsuits aimed at defending Americans’ gun rights, including two filed just last week in Colorado. Yet even as the Justice Department proclaims its dedication to protecting the Second Amendment, its stance on other gun-related cases undermines that pledge.
The Colorado actions challenge the state’s 15-round magazine cap and Denver’s ban on what are commonly referred to as assault weapons. Harmeet Dhillon, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, contends that both statutes are unconstitutional for the same reason: they prohibit arms that are “in common use” for “lawful purposes,” which the Supreme Court has held fall under the Second Amendment, and there is no “historical tradition” to justify such restrictions under the test the Court laid out in 2022.
In December, Dhillon employed the identical argument against the District of Columbia’s assault-weapon ban in a separate suit brought by the division’s newly created Second Amendment Section. Although federal appellate courts have so far resisted these challenges, at least four Supreme Court justices—Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch—appear inclined to share Dhillon’s view.
That outlook hints that the Supreme Court may soon decide on the constitutionality of assault-weapon bans, which typically regulate rifles because of flippant-feeling features such as pistol grips, folding stocks, and flash suppressors. While the ultimate outcome remains uncertain, Dhillon’s argument reads as a straightforward application of principles the Court has already acknowledged.
Dhillon’s position is even more firmly grounded in her December 16 lawsuit against the U.S. Virgin Islands, which imposes a vague and highly discretionary requirement for openly carrying handguns that bears a striking resemblance to New York’s law that the Court struck down in 2022. Her probe into the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which can take up to 18 months to process carry-permit applications, likewise seems consistent with the Court’s concerns about bureaucratic obstacles to the right to bear arms.
The legal hook for the Justice Department’s involvement in these matters rests on a federal statute authorizing the attorney general to seek civil remedies for a law-enforcement “pattern or practice of conduct” that deprives people of constitutional or statutory rights. “The Constitution is not a suggestion,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said last week, “and the Second Amendment is not a second-class right.”
Nevertheless, the Justice Department maintains that the Second Amendment does not extend to broad swaths of Americans who are barred from firearm ownership based on criteria bearing little relation to public safety. The Trump administration has defended the Gun Control Act’s ban on firearm possession by “unlawful” drug users, a centerpiece of a case the Supreme Court will soon decide, as well as the law’s disarmament of people with nonviolent felony records, which has produced numerous petitions that the justices have thus far rejected.
Both controversies pit the Trump administration against the National Rifle Association and other prominent gun-rights groups. It’s not hard to see why, given that neither policy rests on the kind of “historical tradition” the Court has said is necessary to justify gun regulations.
The Justice Department insists that “the Second Amendment is not a second-class right.” Yet it maintains that cannabis users and individuals convicted of nonviolent felonies are, effectively, second-class citizens.
Unlike the civil liberties guaranteed by other constitutional amendments, the administration argues, the right to bear arms may be revoked for arbitrary reasons. In contrast to Blanche’s framing, that certainly reads like a second-class right.
© Copyright 2026 by Creators Syndicate Inc.
