The Trump Administration Is a Powerful but Unreliable Ally of Second Amendment Advocates |
Second Amendment
The Trump Administration Is a Powerful but Unreliable Ally of Second Amendment Advocates
Even as the Justice Department files lawsuits aimed at vindicating gun rights, it undermines them in other cases.
Jacob Sullum | 5.13.2026 12:01 AM
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After the Supreme Court clarified the constitutional test for gun control laws in 2022, many longstanding restrictions on the right to arms looked newly vulnerable. Second Amendment groups jumped at the opportunity, filing one lawsuit after another in cases that frequently pitted them against the Biden administration.
Those groups now have a powerful ally in the Trump administration, which has filed several lawsuits aimed at vindicating Americans' gun rights, including two filed last week in Colorado. But even as the Justice Department advertises its commitment to defending the Second Amendment, its position in other gun cases belies that stance.
The Colorado lawsuits involve the state's 15-round magazine limit and Denver's "assault weapon" ban. Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, argues that both laws are unconstitutional for the same reason: They ban arms "in common use" for "lawful........