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The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging a Colorado law that restricts ammunition magazines holding more than 15 rounds, arguing the measure violates the Second Amendment.
The complaint contends that the state’s ban on so-called “large capacity” magazines infringes on the constitutional right to bear arms.
“The Magazine Ban bans bearable arms,” the DOJ wrote. “Therefore, the Magazine Ban implicates the plain text of the Second Amendment.”
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said the policy amounts to “political virtue signaling at the expense of Americans’ constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”
Colorado officials pushed back. Phil Weiser called the lawsuit a “dangerous overreach” and defended the law as a public safety measure.
“Large-capacity magazine laws are responsible policies that satisfy Second Amendment protections, decrease the deadly impacts of mass shootings, and save lives,” Weiser said, adding that the state will “vigorously defend” the law.
The case is part of a broader legal push by the Trump administration. The DOJ filed a separate lawsuit Tuesday against Denver over its longstanding ban on certain semiautomatic rifles.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in that filing, “The Constitution is not a suggestion and the Second Amendment is not a second-class right. “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,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division added in the DOJ statement.
“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,” she continued.
The Justice Department had warned both state and city leaders that legal action would follow if the restrictions were not lifted, setting up a future court battle over the limits of gun regulation and constitutional protections.
