The Department of Justice has sued Denver over its 37-year-old AR-15 ban, and the legal theory it's using is exactly what will be aimed at Virginia's SB749…
The bottom line
The Department of Justice has sued Denver over its 37-year-old AR-15 ban, and the legal theory it’s using is exactly what will be aimed at Virginia’s SB749 the moment that law takes effect on July 1. Denver is the test case. What happens in the District of Colorado will shape the fight in courthouses across the country.
This article is based on analysis from Bearing Freedom. Watch the original video. This is commentary, not legal advice.
Denver’s ban finally has a challenger with real teeth
Denver banned what it calls “assault weapons” back in 1989. Council Ordinance No. 669, passed by a 9-4 vote following a spike in crime, prohibits the possession, sale, manufacture, storage, and carrying of semi-automatic centerfire rifles with detachable magazines capable of holding more than 15 rounds, semi-automatic pistols with the same, and semi-automatic shotguns with folding stocks or magazines over six rounds. Last amended in January 2018, it carries penalties of $100 to $1,000 in fines and up to 180 days in jail. For 37 years it sat on the books, legally bulletproofed by a 1990 Colorado Supreme Court ruling that upheld it 6-1, essentially untouched.
The DOJ just ended that quiet.
On May 5, 2026, the Justice Department filed United States v. City and County of Denver, Civil Action No. 2026-cv-1929, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. The defendants are the City and County of Denver and the Denver Police Department. The complaint makes two claims: that Denver’s ordinance violates the Second Amendment by criminalizing the possession of constitutionally protected firearms, and that the Denver Police Department’s pattern and practice of enforcing that ordinance deprives residents of rights, privileges, and immunities secured by the Constitution. That second count is the more aggressive move. The DOJ is going after the enforcement apparatus, not just the text of the ordinance.
The legal theory is Bruen, applied with force
The complaint runs through New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022). Under the test Justice Thomas established there, any firearm regulation must be consistent with the historical tradition of firearm regulation in America. No founding-era analog, no law. The DOJ’s core argument: when Denver banned AR-15-style rifles with standard-capacity magazines, it banned an arm in common use for lawful purposes by law-abiding citizens. The complaint puts a number on it: at least 28 million AR-style semi-automatic rifles are in circulation in the United States. That is not a niche collector’s item. That is the most popular rifle platform in the country.
Under Bruen, Denver now bears the burden of proving its ordinance is consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. It cannot. There is no founding-era tradition of banning rifles that civilians widely own. The 1989 city council vote, and the 1990 state supreme court ruling that blessed it, were decided before District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), before McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), and certainly before Bruen. The constitutional ground they stood on is gone.
The complaint was signed by Harmeet K. Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, along with DOJ attorneys R. Jonas Geissler and Barry K. Arrington. Dhillon’s Second Amendment Section is doing exactly what she said it would do when she stood it up: pursue affirmative litigation on behalf of gun owners as a constitutional civil rights matter.
Denver’s response tells you everything
City Attorney Miko Brown called the lawsuit “baseless, irresponsible, and a clear overreach of the federal government’s power.” Mayor Mike Johnston said Denver “will not be bullied.” They’re going to fight it.
Denver’s position, apparently, is that 37 years of unenforced or rarely-enforced prohibition constitutes evidence that the ban “works.” But a law that works by sitting on the books as a latent threat against gun owners is not a public safety measure. It’s a hostage ordinance. The fact that Denver’s penalties are lighter than Virginia’s proposed SB749 penalties does not make it less unconstitutional. A $100 fine for possessing a standard AR-15 is still a criminal sanction for exercising a right the Supreme Court has held to be fundamental.
The city also filed a pre-suit response claiming that reversing the ban would “bring assault weapons back into city neighborhoods.” What that framing studiously ignores is that the AR-15 was never the problem. Denver’s violent crime in 1989 was driven by gang activity and crack cocaine, not by law-abiding residents with semi-automatic rifles. The ban was a political gesture then. It’s a constitutional violation now.
Why this matters far beyond Colorado
I live in Virginia. Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed SB749 on April 13, 2026. That bill bans the sale, manufacture, import, purchase, and transfer of semi-automatic centerfire rifles and pistols capable of accepting magazines over 15 rounds, effective July 1, 2026. It creates a Class 1 misdemeanor for violations, carrying up to a year in jail and $2,500 in fines. The penalties are harsher than Denver’s. The scope of what’s banned is arguably broader than Denver’s.
Harmeet Dhillon put Virginia on notice in writing. On April 10, 2026, the Civil Rights Division sent a formal letter to Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones, with Governor Spanberger and her counsel copied, warning that the DOJ would commence litigation if Virginia enacted its gun package. Spanberger signed it anyway.
The DOJ could not file suit immediately after that signing because SB749 does not take effect until July 1. You cannot sue over the enforcement of a law that isn’t being enforced yet. What you can do is build your legal team, finalize your complaint, and watch what a federal judge does with the Denver case.
That is exactly what is happening.
The DOJ’s Second Amendment Section has been working through the list. They sued D.C. over its AR-15 ban, California over its permitting scheme, and the U.S. Virgin Islands over permitting delays. They’re now pursuing a separate Colorado magazine case alongside the Denver ordinance case. Virginia was warned by name, with statute numbers.
This is not a DOJ that sends letters for show. The Denver filing proves it.
The Civil Rights framing is deliberate and it matters
Dhillon’s decision to house this enforcement effort inside the Civil Rights Division is not organizational housekeeping. It is a legal and political statement. For decades, the Civil Rights Division existed in the public mind as the office that enforced voting rights, employment discrimination law, and police reform consent decrees. Dhillon has expanded that mandate to treat Second Amendment rights the same way.
That has real consequences in litigation. The second count in the Denver complaint, going after the DPD’s pattern and practice of enforcement, is the same legal mechanism the DOJ uses against police departments in consent decree proceedings. City attorneys defending gun regulations have never faced that posture before. The DOJ is not just asking a judge to void an ordinance. It is characterizing 37 years of Denver enforcement as a systematic deprivation of constitutional rights.
What to watch for
The Denver case is now assigned in the District of Colorado. Denver will almost certainly move to dismiss or seek summary judgment on the grounds that the ordinance survives any constitutional standard. The DOJ will argue that Bruen forecloses any such survival. A ruling at the district court level on whether AR-15-style rifles with standard magazines are “in common use” and therefore constitutionally protected would create significant persuasive precedent, and possibly binding precedent in circuits where these cases arise simultaneously.
Virginia’s effective date is July 1. I expect a DOJ filing in the Eastern or Western District of Virginia shortly after that, assuming the Civil Rights Section has its complaint ready, which I believe it does. Dhillon’s letter was not a courtesy notice. It was the cover page of a complaint waiting for its filing date.
Denver’s 37-year-old ordinance survived because nobody with standing and resources came after it. That condition no longer exists. Virginia’s law is six weeks old and already has a complaint being drafted against it. The difference between then and now is a DOJ that actually shows up.
The Second Amendment is not a suggestion, and the Department of Justice is finally acting like it.
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