The Trump Department of Justice is challenging Colorado’s 15-round magazine ban and Denver’s AR-15-style rifle ban, arguing that politicians cannot use loaded labels like “large-capacity magazine” and “assault weapon” to criminalize arms commonly owned by law-abiding Americans.
On May 5th and 6th, the Trump Department of Justice filed two related Second Amendment lawsuits in Colorado: one challenging Denver’s ban on so-called “assault weapons,” including AR-15-style semiautomatic rifles, and another challenging Colorado’s statewide ban on magazines capable of holding more than 15 rounds. In both cases, DOJ argues that state and local officials are criminalizing arms commonly owned by law-abiding Americans in violation of the Second Amendment and Supreme Court precedent.
Colorado law generally prohibits selling, transferring, or possessing a “large-capacity magazine,” defined as a magazine capable of accepting more than 15 rounds, with an exception for magazines owned before July 1, 2013, and continuously possessed since then. Denver’s ordinance separately bans possession of so-called “assault weapons,” including many AR-15-style semiautomatic rifles.
DOJ argues that these laws rely on politically charged labels to make commonly owned firearms and standard-capacity magazines sound alien, unusually dangerous, or outside the protection of the Constitution. “The Magazine Ban uses politically charged rhetoric to describe the arms it bans,” the complaint states. “The Magazine Ban’s characterization of these magazines as ‘large capacity’ is a misnomer, because magazines capable of holding more than 15 rounds are, in fact, standard capacity magazines for many popular firearms, including the AR-15 rifle, the most popular rifle in America.”
After making this point, the DOJ then refused to use the “tendentious” term, “large capacity magazines,” for the remainder of the suit.
The lawsuits lean heavily on the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment framework in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which held that when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers a person’s conduct, the government must justify its restriction by showing consistency with America’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
“Law-abiding Americans own and use for lawful purposes literally hundreds of millions of magazines such as those banned by the State. A detachable magazine is an integral part of most semi-automatic firearms, including the AR-15 rifle. As such, they are covered by the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms. The State’s magazine ban is a ban on an arm in common use for lawful by law-abiding citizens,” the DOJ wrote.
Quoting former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner’s book Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts, the complaint states, “When ‘a text authorizes a certain act, it implicitly authorizes whatever is a necessary predicate of that act.’”
To exercise the right to keep and bear popular semiautomatic firearms as designed, gun owners must be able to use detachable magazines, including standard-capacity magazines over 15 rounds; DOJ therefore argues that such magazines are protected “arms” under the Second Amendment. Many of the nation’s most popular firearms are sold with magazine capacities over 15 rounds, meaning that such laws ban millions of magazines sold within Colorado. The DOJ cited the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s 1990-2021 findings showing that 448 million “large capacity” magazines are owned in the United States.
By making magazines that are in common use illegal, the DOJ concluded, Colorado and Denver are violating the Second Amendment.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon stated:
“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.”
Last year, the DOJ filed suits against the Virgin Islands Police Department for its gun licensing policies and the District of Columbia for its ban on so-called assault weapons.
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, D, claims that the federal government is bullying the city. “Denver will not be bullied by any administration, especially one that has shown so little regard for public safety or the rule of law. The federal government should be helping cities keep families safe, not making it easier for dangerous weapons to end up on our streets. We will fight with everything we have to protect our communities and defend Denver’s right to pass commonsense gun safety laws,” he said.
The DOJ has the right idea by refusing to use fake terms that are designed to deceive and fearmonger. What’s more, its attorneys provide a strong argument for using accurate language by citing the Supreme Court itself:
“The term ‘assault weapon’ is not a technical term used in the firearms industry. Rather, as [Supreme Court] Justice [Clarence] Thomas has aptly noted, ‘assault weapon’ is a rhetorically charged political term developed by anti-gun publicists,” the DOJ’s complaint against Denver states. “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.”
Even Steven Dettlebach, the former director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) under the Biden administration, testified before Congress that he didn’t know what the phrase “assault weapon” meant.
The terms are meant to sway people into believing that commonly used weapons are somehow too dangerous for Americans to own.
That is why the Trump DOJ is forcing the question courts can no longer avoid: if AR-15-style rifles are among the most commonly owned firearms in America, and standard-capacity magazines are owned by the hundreds of millions, how can state and local governments ban them while still claiming to honor the Second Amendment?
This is a weak attempt at skirting the Constitution and not a genuine attempt to protect citizens. But it is encouraging to see the DOJ work to protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Coloradans, rather than fighting to take them away.
These lawsuits matter because constitutional rights cannot depend on political branding. If government officials can relabel common firearms and standard-capacity magazines until they sound too dangerous for ordinary citizens, then the Second Amendment becomes a parchment promise. The Trump DOJ is right to confront that strategy directly – not merely for Colorado gun owners, but for every American whose liberties depend on the Constitution meaning what it says.
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