Most of us who are Second Amendment advocates believe that the Second Amendment means precisely what it says, especially the "...shall not be infringed" part. Of course, cities, states, and the federal government have been infringing on what several Supreme Court cases have determined is the right of the people to keep and bear arms. One of those jurisdictions is the deep blue city of Denver, Colorado, which recently passed an ordinance banning a variety of semi-automatic rifles from the city, including the most widely used rifles in the country: The AR platform.
Now, the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division chief, the wonderful Harmeet Dhillon, on Tuesday, took to her X account to announce she has filed suit against the City of Denver on Second Amendment grounds.
I’ve directed the @CivilRights Division, through our new Second Amendment Section, to defend law-abiding Americans from unconstitutional restrictions. No one should face criminal penalties simply for exercising a right shared by tens of millions—regardless of where they live.…
— AAGHarmeetDhillon (@AAGDhillon) May 5, 2026
A press release from the DOJ has more details:
As the complaint explains, the City enforces an ordinance that makes it a crime to possess so-called “assault weapons.” But that the City’s ban includes AR-15-style rifles, which are the most popular rifles in America. Law-abiding Americans own tens of millions of rifles like those banned by the City.
“The Constitution is not a suggestion and the Second Amendment is not a second-class right,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. “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.”
“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,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. “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.”
This is a case to keep an eye on.
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We voted for this, for a Department of Justice that now has a Second Amendment Section, devoted to protecting Americans' right to keep and bear arms - and by "keep and bear" we mean "own and carry." That's what the Second Amendment says, that's what the Founders intended, and while we may never completely unravel all of the infringements that have been put into law at various levels of government, we can sure keep the pressure on. And, yes, a lot of us understand the "...shall not be infringed" as meaning just that, which means that I should be able to walk into my local gun shop, plunk down cash, and walk out with a Thompson submachine gun. We may never get back to that, as things were before 1934. But that's no reason to let a blatant infringement like the city of Denver has perpetrated stand. Harmeet Dhillon gets that.
Stay tuned. This could be a very significant case.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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