You Will Shoot Your Eye Out

The city of Denver has infringed upon the rights of its citizens for decades by banning the ownership of common, constitutionally protected semi-automatic rifles. Now, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is taking the city to task over the infringement.

Passed back in 1989, the ordinance makes it illegal to carry, store, keep, manufacture, sell, or otherwise possess what it calls “assault weapons” in the city. On May 5, the DOJ filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado seeking to have the ban ruled unconstitutional and stricken from the books.

“The Constitution is not a suggestion and the Second Amendment is not a second-class right,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a news release announcing the action. “Denver’s ban on commonly owned semi-automatic rifles directly violates the right to bear arms. This Department of Justice will vigorously defend the liberties of law-abiding citizens nationwide.”

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court, in its landmark decision District of Columbia v. Heller, held that the Second Amendment protects the right of law-abiding citizens to possess weapons that are in common use for lawful purposes. In the complaint, the DOJ argues that Denver’s law directly violates that critical aspect of the ruling.

“In reality, the firearms the City calls ‘assault weapons’ include ordinary semi-automatic rifles possessed by millions of law-abiding Americans,” the complaint explains. “Indeed, Americans own literally tens of millions of AR-15 style rifles, the paradigmatic ‘assault weapon’ covered by the Ordinance. As the Supreme Court has recently recognized, the AR-15 is the most popular rifle in America.

 

When the City banned AR-15 style rifles with standard capacity magazines, it banned an arm in common use for lawful purposes by law-abiding citizens. Therefore, the Ordinance violates the Second Amendment, and the United States brings this action to vindicate the rights of Denver citizens whose rights have been—and are continuing to be—violated by Defendants.”

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division,  said her office stands ready to fight this ordinance and any unconstitutional gun laws throughout the nation.

“I have directed the Civil Rights Division, through our new Second Amendment Section, to defend law-abiding Americans from restrictions such as those we are challenging in these cases,” Dhillon said.

 

“Law-abiding Americans, regardless of what city or state they reside in, should not have to live under threat of criminal sanction just for exercising their Second Amendment right to possess arms which are owned by tens of millions of their fellow citizens.”

Ultimately, the DOJ is asking the court to declare the law unconstitutional under the Second Amendment, enjoin defendants and their agents from enforcing the ordinance to the extent it bans the possession of AR-15-style rifles with standard-capacity magazines, and “such other and additional relief as the interests of justice may require.”