The Justice Department is suing D.C. police, calling the District’s ban on AR-15s and other weapons unconstitutional.
In a lawsuit filed Monday, government attorneys chastised the city for its code that bans most semiautomatic rifles and certain firearms from being registered with the police department, ultimately making any possession of those weapons illegal. Among the prohibited weapons are AK-47s and AR-15s.
Without registration, people who own these firearms for lawful purposes are subject to misdemeanor charges and fines, attorneys for the Justice Department said.
“Their decisions to deny certificates of registration for commonly possessed semiautomatic firearms runs afoul of binding Supreme Court precedent,” the lawsuit claims, “and therefore trample the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.”
The government cited a 2008 Supreme Court ruling, District of Columbia v. Heller, which held that people may possess firearms in their homes for purposes such as self-defense, invalidating a handgun ban that the District had in place at the time.
In response to the Heller decision, D.C. updated its gun laws to include a registry and training requirements for gun owners in the city. The law effectively outlaws assault-style rifles by making them impossible to register in the District. A D.C. police spokesperson declined to comment, citing active litigation.
Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said in a statement Monday night that the District would “vigorously defend our right to make decisions that keep our city safe.”
“Gun violence destroys families, upends communities, and threatens our collective sense of safety. MPD has saved lives by taking illegal guns off our streets — efforts that have been praised by our federal partners,” Bowser said. “It is irresponsible to take any steps that would lead to more, and deadlier, guns in our communities, especially semi-automatic rifles like AR-15s.”
In August, the Justice Department instructed federal prosecutors in D.C. not to seek felony charges against people carrying rifles or shotguns in the nation’s capital, regardless of the strength of the evidence. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro defended the policy, which also applies to large-capacity magazines, in a statement to The Washington Post in August, saying that D.C.’s blanket prohibition “is clearly a violation of the Supreme Court’s holdings.”
The Justice Department’s lawsuit claims that the city’s semiautomatic firearms prohibition is “based on little more than cosmetics, appearance, or the ability to attach accessories.”
The White House has heralded gun seizures in D.C. as proof that the federal law enforcement surge ordered by President Donald Trump has been a success. A page titled “Achievements” on the White House website says Trump’s D.C. crime crackdown resulted in the seizure of hundreds of firearms. The Post reported that illegal gun possession was the most common charge among arrests involving federal agents during the crackdown. In the first four weeks of the surge, The Post found that 1 in 4 of those arrests involved gun charges.
Attorney General Pam Bondi posted near-daily tallies of gun seizures in the early days of the law enforcement surge and has lauded Washington gun arrests as recently as last week.
“Our federal surge in DC has saved countless lives, removed hundreds of illegal guns off the streets, and led to a dramatic drop in crime in our nation’s capital city,” she posted on Xon Wednesday.
In a news release announcing the lawsuit Monday, Bondi emphasized her “ironclad commitment” to Second Amendment rights. “Washington, DC’s ban on some of America’s most popular firearms is an unconstitutional infringement on the Second Amendment — living in our nation’s capital should not preclude law-abiding citizens from exercising their fundamental constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”
The AR-15 has become a staple of American culture, The Post has previously reported. AR-15 bullets create a blast effect that can pulverize bones and eviscerate multiple people in seconds. A single bullet lands with enough force to blow apart a skull and demolish vital organs. The gun has become the weapon of choice for mass shooters. It is also a consistently among the best-selling rifles in the U.S.
But it’s that fact — the popularity of the AR-15 — that makes the Justice Department’s lawsuit warranted, said George Lyon, a D.C. and Virginia attorney specializing in firearms law. Lyon noted that the Supreme Court determined in the Heller case that the Second Amendment protects arms “in common use.”
Lyon filed a federal lawsuit against the city and Police Chief Pamela A. Smith last year saying the District’s ban violated the Second Amendment. His client, Tyler Yzaguirre, who moved to D.C. from Delaware, was turned down while attempting to register his rifle, Lyon said.
“They are denied the use of the tool that they choose to use for their self-defense,” Lyon said. “I welcome the Justice Department stepping in here and attempting to vindicate the rights of law-abiding citizens in the District.”
D.C. is not the only government to put restrictions on assault weapons, with states like Maryland, New York, Illinois and California prohibiting most semiautomatic weapons. Such bans have so far withstood court challenges. The Supreme Court this year declined to hear a challenge to Maryland’s law.
The lawsuit names D.C. and D.C. police as defendants, as well as Smith. “Chief Smith and MPD routinely arrest law-abiding citizens for possessing firearms that are protected under the Second Amendment but not registerable in D.C.,” the lawsuit says.
It’s the second time in as many weeks that Smith has been criticized by the Justice Department. An investigation into D.C. police accused the chief of creating a “coercive culture of fear” that may have incentivized the manipulation of crime statistics. Smith resigned earlier this month and, in an exit speech, fiercely denied the allegations against her.
Gun-control advocates say assault weapon bans are a powerful tool to prevent mass casualty attacks.
Douglas Letter, chief legal officer of the advocacy group Brady United, said in a statement that Pirro’s decision not to enforce certain gun laws in D.C., along with Monday’s Justice Department lawsuit, “threatens to encourage gun crime and increase the lethality of shootings here.”
Lawyers with Everytown Law, the legal arm of the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, said the city’s gun restrictions are legal.
“The legal consensus is clear: assault weapon bans are constitutional. Since the Supreme Court’s rulings in Bruen and Rahimi, federal courts have repeatedly affirmed that these laws are consistent with the Second Amendment,” Bill Taylor, deputy director of Second Amendment litigation at Everytown Law, said in a statement. “Assault weapons are designed for mass devastation, and we look forward to supporting D.C. as it defends this critical common-sense safety measure.”
The Justice Department wants city police to admit that they violated the Second Amendment, according to the lawsuit, and asks a judge to permanently ban D.C. police from arresting or fining law-abiding people for possessing assault weapons.
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