The Justice Department announced Tuesday that it has filed a lawsuit against the city of Denver, Colorado, “alleging that the City unconstitutionally bans certain constitutionally protected semi-automatic rifles.”
“These laws unconstitutionally infringe on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms in common use for lawful purposes,” according to the Justice Department.
“The Constitution is not a suggestion and the Second Amendment is not a second-class right,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. “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.”
The 12-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado names the City and County of Denver, Colorado, and the Denver Police Department as defendants. It said Denver has an ordinance that makes it “a crime to carry, store, keep, manufacture, sell, or otherwise possess a so-called ‘assault weapon,’” but that the ordinance contains “politically charged rhetoric.”
“The term ‘assault weapon’ is not a technical term used in the firearms industry. Rather, as Justice Thomas has aptly noted, ’assault weapon’ is a rhetorically charged political term developed by anti-gun publicists,” the complaint reads. “In reality, the firearms the City calls ‘assault weapons’ include ordinary semiautomatic rifles possessed by millions of law-abiding Americans. 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,” the complaint added. “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.”
The complaint calls for declaratory and injunctive relief. The Denver Police Department told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that it would defer to the Denver mayor’s office for comment.
The office of Denver Mayor Mike Johnston released a statement Monday saying he was joined “by public safety and civic leaders in rejecting a demand from the U.S. Department of Justice to repeal the city’s longstanding ban on assault weapons.”
“The demand, which suggested a lawsuit would be filed if Denver does not comply, came last week in a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice,” the Democrat’s office said.
“Our first job is to keep Denverites safe, and we will not be intimidated out of doing it,” Johnston said in a statement. “Denver’s law has stood for 37 years because it works, it saves lives, and it reflects the values of our community. No demand or lawsuit from Washington is going to change that.”
Johnston’s office said “Denver’s law was passed in 1989 and restricts the possession and sale of guns with magazines carrying more than 15 rounds,” and that “Denver retains clear legal authority to regulate firearms within its borders to protect public safety, and the ordinance is consistent with both Colorado law and the U.S. Constitution.”
However, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said Tuesday that, “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.”
“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,” Dhillon continued.
“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,” the Justice Department said.