The Trump administration sued Washington, D.C., on Monday in an effort to loosen the city’s strict gun laws, the latest move in its effort to reimagine public safety in the nation’s capital, where it has deployed thousands of National Guard and other federal forces.
Washington has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, and the suit by the Justice Department’s civil rights division challenged two provisions: heavy restrictions aimed at popular rifles like the AR-15 and the lengthy registration process in which the city’s police department must approve all firearms on a case-by-case basis.
In the lawsuit, the Justice Department wrote that city laws governing which guns are legal are “based on little more than cosmetics, appearance, or the ability to attach accessories,” and fail “to take into account whether the prohibited weapon is ‘in common use today,’” quoting a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2004 declaring that a ban on Washington residents owning handguns was unconstitutional.
The Justice Department asked a federal judge for a declaration that the city’s gun laws violated the Second Amendment, and a permanent injunction blocking the enforcement of those laws. The D.C. attorney general’s office, which represents the city in court, declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The suit was the latest action by Mr. Trump’s Justice Department intended to make it easier for residents of the nation’s capital to own and carry firearms, a policy that the president and his subordinates have argued would lower crime in a city where thousands of National Guard troops remain deployed for what the president has described as a crackdown on criminal activity.
In an executive order signed in March, Mr. Trump established a crime task force that would, among other goals, make it easier for city residents to carry concealed handguns in public spaces. Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington, has also instructed prosecutors to not enforce the city’s ban on openly carrying rifles and shotguns in public and the city’s ban on magazines that hold more than 10 bullets.
But the lawsuit on Monday represented the first serious effort by the Trump administration to permanently change the city’s gun laws — even as it has aggressively pursued criminal cases against those accused of violating those restrictions and trumpeted the seizure of hundreds of illegal guns.
There are no gun stores or gun ranges in Washington, and it is illegal to carry a gun under any circumstances in large swaths of the city and on public transportation. But the city has long had an issue with gun crime.
In 2023, Washington had the third-highest rate of gun homicides among major cities, according to Everytown for Gun Safety. Police recovery of illegal firearms has hit record highs in recent years. Facing a similar problem that has confounded other liberal cities and states, most illegal firearms are brought in from places with less restrictive gun laws.
The Justice Department suit seeks to largely dismantle the unique system by which Washington regulates gun ownership: Guns that are not first registered with the city’s police department are illegal to own in the city, and officers approve those registration applications case by case. Approval is contingent on the gun meeting requirements laid out in city laws that cover handguns, shotguns and rifles.
Some of those provisions are aimed at effectively banning modern rifles like the AR-15 and AK-47, either by outlawing certain brands and models or by banning specific parts that are commonly used on those rifles.
Even so, those bans are not fully effective. Those weapons can be modified in ways that meet the restrictions while resembling and functioning similarly to the unaltered weapons. Many firearm manufacturers advertise which of their guns comply with the restrictions in liberal jurisdictions like California, New York or Washington, D.C., and inexpensive modification kits can convert otherwise prohibited rifles into legal weapons.
The Justice Department’s lawsuit seeks to end all of those restrictions in the city, and for Washington to allow the registration of all firearms that are otherwise legal under federal law.
Chris Cameron is a Times reporter covering Washington, focusing on breaking news and the Trump administration.
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