The Trump administration is suing the District of Columbia over its gun laws

The Trump administration has launched a legal battle against Washington, D.C., challenging the district’s gun laws in a lawsuit that could significantly impact the interpretation of Second Amendment rights across the nation.

Filed Monday in U.S. District Court, the lawsuit names the Washington Metropolitan Police Department and outgoing Police Chief Pamela Smith as defendants. The Justice Department alleges that D.C.’s restrictions on certain semiautomatic weapons violate constitutional protections for gun ownership.

“The United States of America brings this lawsuit to protect the rights that have been guaranteed for 234 years and which the Supreme Court has explicitly reaffirmed several times over the last two decades,” the Justice Department stated in court documents.

This marks the administration’s second such legal action this month. Earlier, the Justice Department sued the U.S. Virgin Islands, claiming the territory is systematically denying American citizens their right to possess and carry firearms.

The D.C. lawsuit represents another chapter in ongoing tensions between the federal government and the nation’s capital. The administration recently deployed a controversial law enforcement intervention in the district, including National Guard troops, which the city’s attorney general is currently challenging in court.

When contacted about the lawsuit, Metropolitan Police Department spokesman Sean Hickman declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.

At the heart of the case is the Justice Department’s assertion that D.C. is imposing unconstitutional bans on AR-15 rifles and other semiautomatic weapons. The administration argues these firearms are legal to possess under the landmark 2008 Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which also originated from a dispute over D.C. gun restrictions.

The Heller decision established that private citizens have an individual right to own weapons “in common use today,” regardless of militia participation. The Court held that “on the basis of both text and history, the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms,” though noting this right “was not unlimited, just as the First Amendment’s right of free speech was not.”

The Trump administration contends D.C. has overstepped boundaries in limiting weapons possession. Justice Department lawyers emphasize the Heller reference to weapons “in common use today,” arguing this applies to firearms that district residents are currently prohibited from registering. These restrictions, they say, subject residents to criminal penalties for unregistered firearms.

“Specifically, the District denies law-abiding citizens the ability to register a wide variety of commonly used semi-automatic firearms, such as the Colt AR-15 series rifles, which is among the most popular of firearms in America, and a variety of other semi-automatic rifles and pistols that are in common use,” the Justice Department wrote in the lawsuit.

The filing further argues that “D.C.’s current semi-automatic firearms prohibition that bans many commonly used pistols, rifles or shotguns is based on little more than cosmetics, appearance, or the ability to attach accessories,” failing to consider whether the prohibited weapons are “in common use today” or serve lawful purposes protected under the Second Amendment.

Unlike the Heller case, which was named for Washington resident Dick Heller who challenged the city’s handgun ban in 2003, the current lawsuit does not include individual plaintiffs alleging constitutional rights violations. Instead, the administration claims jurisdiction to challenge D.C.’s gun laws under the comprehensive federal crime law enacted in 1994.

The case could potentially lead to another significant Supreme Court ruling on gun rights, further defining the scope of Second Amendment protections in urban settings and across the country. Legal experts suggest this could become one of several cases reshaping the landscape of firearms regulation in America in the coming years.