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The Trump administration is suing the local government of Washington, D.C., over its gun laws, alleging that its ban on certain semi-automatic weapons violates Second Amendment rights.
The US Justice Department filed its lawsuit in the US District Court on Monday District of Columbianaming of washington Metropolitan Police Department And the filing of outgoing Police Chief Pamela Smith as a defendant is setting up another potentially seismic showdown over how broadly courts interpret individual gun ownership rights.
“The United States brings this lawsuit to protect rights that have been guaranteed for 234 years and which Supreme Court This has been clearly reaffirmed many times over the past two decades,” the Justice Department says.
It is the second such lawsuit filed by the administration this month: The Justice Department is also suing the U.S. Virgin Islands, alleging the U.S. territory is hindering and systematically denying American citizens the right to keep and carry guns.
It is also the latest confrontation between the District of Columbia and the federal government, which launched an ongoing law enforcement intervention in the nation’s capital over the summer aimed at fighting crime. Challenging the appointment of the District Attorney General National Guard In the city as part of the court intervention.
The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington did not immediately comment. associated Press Inquire about the latest lawsuit.
While the Justice Department claims the district is imposing an unconstitutional ban on AR-15s and other semi-automatic weapons, the administration says the weapons are legal under the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller precedent, which arose out of a controversy over gun restrictions in the nation’s capital.
In that seminal case, the Court ruled that private citizens have an individual right to keep and operate weapons “in common use today”, even if they are part of what the Second Amendment text refers to as a “well-regulated militia.”
The majority argued, “Based on both text and history we have no doubt that the Second Amendment provides an individual right to keep and bear arms.” The justices added a caveat: “Of course, the right was not unlimited, just as the First Amendment right to free speech was not.”
The Justice Department argues that the District has gone too far in trying to limit weapons possession under that caveat. Administration lawyers emphasize the Heller reference to weapons “in common use today”, saying it applies to firearms that residents of the District of Columbia can no longer register. The administration claims those restrictions result in residents facing criminal penalties for possessing unregistered firearms.
Justice Department lawyers write, “Specifically, the District deprives law-abiding citizens of the ability to register a wide variety of commonly used semi-automatic firearms, such as the Colt AR-15 series rifles, one of the most popular firearms in America, and many other semi-automatic rifles and pistols that are in common use.”
The lawsuit continues, “D.C.’s current semi-automatic firearms prohibition, which bans many commonly used pistols, rifles, or shotguns, is based on little more than cosmetics, appearance, or the ability to attach accessories,” and fails to take into account whether the banned weapons are ‘in common use today’ or whether law-abiding citizens can use these weapons for legitimate purposes protected by the Second Amendment.
The Justice Department has not joined any individual plaintiffs in Washington, D.C., who allege violations of their constitutional rights. This is separate from the Heller case, which is named after Dick Heller, a Washington resident who filed a civil lawsuit in 2003 challenging the city’s handgun ban.
The administration has argued in the lawsuit that it has jurisdiction under a sweeping 1994 federal crime law to challenge the current district laws.