Trump DOJ: Ally With Asterisks

The Trump Justice Department is suing Colorado over its magazine ban and Denver's assault weapon ordinance—but it's also defending the exact kind of discretionary disarmament the gun rights movement has spent years fighting.

State of play: The DOJ's Civil Rights Division has opened a Second Amendment Section and is now actively litigating gun rights cases, including:

• A lawsuit against Colorado's 15-round magazine limit
• A suit challenging Denver's "assault weapon" ban
• A December 2025 suit against D.C.'s AWB
• A case targeting the U.S. Virgin Islands' carry permit scheme
• An investigation into L.A. County's 18-month carry permit backlog

The legal argument is the same in each: these laws ban arms "in common use" for lawful purposes and lack the historical tradition Bruen requires. It's a clean application of what the Supreme Court already said in 2022. At least four justices appear ready to take up an AWB challenge—Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch—which means this litigation could actually move the ball.

Yes, but: The same DOJ defending your right to own a standard-capacity magazine is also defending federal law that strips gun rights from cannabis users and people with nonviolent felony convictions. Neither policy survives a serious Bruen analysis—there's no historical tradition of disarming people for drug use or for offenses that don't involve violence—yet the Trump administration is arguing for both in federal court.

That puts the administration directly at odds with the NRA and most of the major gun rights organizations on those two fronts.

"The Constitution is not a suggestion, and the Second Amendment is not a second-class right." — Acting AG Todd Blanche, May 2025

Between the lines: Blanche's rhetoric is solid. The DOJ's docket is selective. An administration that argues cannabis consumers and nonviolent ex-offenders are categorically outside Second Amendment protection is, by definition, treating the right to arms as conditional in a way it doesn't treat any other constitutional right. That's the definition of a second-class right, regardless of how many AWB lawsuits get filed.

What gun owners should know: The AWB and magazine-limit litigation matters even in states that don't have those laws. If the Supreme Court takes one of these cases and rules that commonly owned semi-automatic rifles and standard-capacity magazines are constitutionally protected, that decision sets precedent that forecloses future restrictions at every level of government—including any that might come down the road in your own state or municipalities.

What to watch: The Supreme Court's handling of the federal drug-user gun ban case will be the clearest signal of how far this Court is willing to push Bruen's historical tradition test. If SCOTUS rules against the ban, it puts pressure on the nonviolent felony prohibition next—and puts the Trump DOJ in an awkward spot it created for itself.

The bottom line: Take the DOJ's AWB lawsuits seriously—they're real, the argument is sound, and the Court may finally be ready to hear it. Just don't mistake an ally of convenience for a principled one.