OAN Staff Cory Hawkins
1:13 PM – Tuesday, December 23, 2025
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), through its Civil Rights Division’s newly established Second Amendment Section, filed a federal lawsuit on Monday against the District of Columbia’s (D.C.) Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and the D.C. government.
The suit, in addition to challenging D.C. government laws and policies, argues that D.C.’s firearm registration laws and MPD’s enforcement practices effectively ban commonly owned semi-automatic rifles and other protected weapons — violating the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.
The lawsuit also follows DOJ allegations that D.C. authorities, via the MPD and D.C. Code provisions on firearm registration, were unlawfully imposing a de facto ban on AR-15s and other commonly owned semi-automatic firearms.
“Washington, DC’s ban on some of America’s most popular firearms is an unconstitutional infringement on the Second Amendment — living in our nation’s capital should not preclude law-abiding citizens from exercising their fundamental constitutional right to keep and bear arms,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.
D.C. gun laws allow firearm registration, but ban registration and legal possession of many common semi-automatic firearms, including AR-15s and other similar models.
One former D.C. officer, Richard Heller, was even previously barred from keeping a personal handgun in his home for self-defense, prompting him to sue the district in 2003, arguing that this clearly violated his Second Amendment right. The case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2008 ruled in Heller’s favor.
A similar lawsuit was filed this month against the U.S. Virgin Islands.
“This Civil Rights Division will defend American citizens from unconstitutional restrictions of commonly used firearms, in violation of their Second Amendment rights,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division. “The newly established Second Amendment Section filed this lawsuit to ensure that the very rights D.C. resident Mr. Heller secured 17 years ago are enforced today — and that all law-abiding citizens seeking to own protected firearms for lawful purposes may do so.”
The Civil Rights Division enforces the Second Amendment and encourages gun owners who believe they’re being unlawfully prevented from registering or owning firearms to submit complaints through their website.
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