The Trump administration sued Colorado on Wednesday over the state’s ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines, one day after it filed a similar lawsuit against the city of Denver’s assault weapons ban.
State lawmakers prohibited magazines able to hold more than 15 rounds of ammunition following a 2012 shooting at a movie theater in the city of Aurora, which killed a dozen people. The Denver law, passed in 1989, restricts the possession of certain semiautomatic and high-capacity firearms.
The Justice Department alleges that both bans violate the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms “in common use for lawful purposes.”
The suits are the latest challenges the Justice Department has filed to state and local gun regulations since the creation last year of a special section within its Civil Rights Division focused on Second Amendment rights.
Since then, the section has announced investigations into gun control laws in California and filed suit over D.C.’s ban on certain semiautomatic firearms, including the AR-15, and gun registration requirements in the Virgin Islands that it has described as unconstitutionally burdensome.
The Justice Department last week demanded Denver and Colorado drop their laws or face litigation, and Colorado officials responded defiantly.
“We’re here to let them know that our answer is ‘Hell no,’” Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said Monday at a news conference where he was flanked by city officials and gun control advocates.
Phil Weiser, Colorado’s attorney general, said on Thursday that the state would fight what he called a “dangerous overreach” that could endanger residents of a state that has been scarred by several mass killings involving AR-15 style weapons. The state law was upheld by the Colorado Supreme Court in 2020.
“Large-capacity magazine laws are responsible policies that satisfy Second Amendment protections, decrease the deadly impacts of mass shootings, and save lives,” Weiser said in a statement.
Jeremy Roebuck contributed to this report.
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