Politicians and advocates for gun control have tried repeatedly to turn the Second Amendment into a second-class right. Carry rights, magazine bans, “assault weapon” bans, pistol-brace traps, registration schemes — the strategy is always the same. Criminalize ordinary gun owners first, then force them to spend years in court to recognize rights the Constitution already protects.
That is what makes Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon’s latest comments so important.
In a new interview highlighted by Just the News, Dhillon said she believes the Supreme Court will eventually rule that AR-15s are legal for law-abiding citizens nationwide. She called AR-15 bans “low-hanging fruit,” pointing to Heller, Bruen, and the Supreme Court’s recent unanimous language in Smith & Wesson v. Mexico recognizing the AR-15’s popularity among ordinary Americans.
Now, the DOJ is finally going after anti-gun states to protect the rights of American citizens.
On May 5, the Department of Justice sued Denver over its long-running ban on so-called “assault weapons.” DOJ says Denver criminalizes possession of certain constitutionally protected semiautomatic rifles, including AR-15-style rifles, and that law-abiding Americans own “tens of millions” of rifles like those banned by the city.
The complaint is blunt. DOJ calls “assault weapon” a politically charged term, says the firearms Denver bans include ordinary semiautomatic rifles possessed by millions of law-abiding Americans, and argues that the city banned arms in common use for lawful purposes.
But Denver is no longer the whole story.
One day after suing Denver over its ban on common semiautomatic rifles, the Justice Department filed a second lawsuit against the State of Colorado and the Colorado Department of Public Safety over Colorado’s statewide magazine ban. The May 6 complaint challenges Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-12-302, which makes it a crime to sell, transfer, or possess a so-called “large-capacity magazine.” Under Colorado law, that means, among other things, a detachable magazine capable of holding more than 15 rounds.
DOJ did not accept Colorado’s terminology. The complaint calls “large capacity” a misnomer, arguing that magazines holding more than 15 rounds are standard-capacity magazines for many popular firearms, including the AR-15. The government also argues that detachable magazines are integral to most semiautomatic firearms and are covered by the Second Amendment.
This is the hardware fight the Supreme Court keeps avoiding.
Rifle bans and magazine bans are two sides of the same anti-gun strategy. If politicians cannot ban the entire firearm, they ban the features. If they cannot ban the rifle outright, they ban the magazines that make it function as designed. Then they ask courts to pretend the Second Amendment protects some hollowed-out version of the right while ordinary gun owners are left with criminal penalties for owning what millions of Americans already possess.
DOJ’s Colorado complaint makes the point directly. The government says law-abiding Americans own hundreds of millions of magazines like those Colorado bans, and cites an NSSF report estimating at least 448 million standard-capacity magazines in the United States.
This is why the Supreme Court should take one of the hardware cases already before it. The question is no longer academic. DOJ is now in federal court arguing that common rifles and standard-capacity magazines are protected arms. Harmeet Dhillon is saying publicly that AR-15 bans are headed for a Supreme Court reckoning. And states like Colorado are still enforcing laws that criminalize ordinary gun owners for possessing the magazines that come standard with some of the most popular firearms in America.
The Court should not wait years for Denver or Colorado to crawl through the lower courts. It already has the issue in front of it. Take a rifle case, take a magazine case. Take both. But stop allowing lower courts to treat “common use” like an empty phrase.
In National Association for Gun Rights v. Lamont, the petition asks whether bans on AR-15-style rifles and magazines over ten rounds — both possessed by millions of law-abiding Americans — violate the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court docket shows the case has been repeatedly distributed for conference, including for May 1, 2026.
In Grant v. Higgins, another Connecticut “assault weapon” ban challenge, the petition is also tied to the Second Circuit’s decision and has likewise been repeatedly distributed for conference.
Magazine-ban cases are also stacked in front of the Court. Duncan v. Bonta, the long-running challenge to California’s ban on magazines over ten rounds, was docketed in August 2025 and repeatedly distributed for conference into 2026. Gator’s Custom Guns v. Washington, another magazine-ban case, has followed a similar path.
These cases go to the core of the Second Amendment: whether government can ban entire categories of arms owned by millions of peaceable Americans simply because anti-gun lawmakers dislike their features, capacity, appearance, or political symbolism.
Justice Kavanaugh already signaled the problem in Snope v. Brown. Although the Court denied review of Maryland’s AR-15 ban, Kavanaugh wrote that Americans possess an estimated 20 to 30 million AR-15s, that AR-15s are legal in 41 states, and that petitioners had a strong argument that AR-15s are in common use and protected under Heller. He also said the Court should and presumably would address the AR-15 issue “soon, in the next Term or two.”
Justice Thomas was even more direct. He would have granted review, calling it “surprising” that the Fourth Circuit concluded AR-15s were not protected arms under the Second Amendment.
Lower courts are treating common rifles and standard magazines as if they can be banned by rebranding them as “dangerous,” “unusual,” “military-style,” or “accessories.” That cannot be squared with Heller. Common-use arms are not unusual. Magazines are not decorative add-ons. A semiautomatic rifle without a functioning magazine is not a meaningful arm for self-defense.
This is the same shell game gun owners see every legislative session. Politicians claim they are not banning guns, just “features.” They are not banning arms, just “accessories.” They are not targeting the Second Amendment, just “weapons of war.” Then the law-abiding citizen finds out his rifle, magazine, pistol brace, or ordinary firearm configuration has turned them into a felon overnight.
The Supreme Court needs to end that game.
DOJ’s Denver lawsuit is important because it shows the federal government, for once, treating the Second Amendment like a real civil right. Dhillon said, “These rights do not protect themselves,” and she is right. Anti-gun cities and states have spent decades betting that ordinary citizens will not have the time, money, or patience to fight every unconstitutional ban to the finish line.
The bigger issue is no longer one city or state. It is whether the Supreme Court will finally take a hardware case and tell the lower courts that Bruen was not a suggestion.
The cleanest move would be for the Court to grant one of the pending AR-15 cases, such as NAGR v. Lamont or Grant v. Higgins, and resolve whether states may ban common semiautomatic rifles. A magazine case like Duncan or Gator’s Custom Guns would also allow the Court to address the increasingly popular “accessory” dodge being used to strip protection from the parts that make modern firearms function.
The Court does not need another decade of lower-court defiance. It does not need another city ordinance dressed up in scary language. It does not need another state telling citizens that the most popular rifle in America is somehow outside the Second Amendment.
It needs to answer the question directly.
If the Second Amendment protects arms in common use by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, then AR-15s and standard-capacity magazines are protected. If courts can still uphold bans on those arms, then Heller and Bruen are being reduced to parchment barriers.
Dhillon’s comments and the DOJ’s latest lawsuits put anti-gun jurisdictions on notice. Now the Supreme Court should do the same.
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About Duncan Johnson:
Duncan Johnson is a lifelong firearms enthusiast and unwavering defender of the Second Amendment—where “shall not be infringed” means exactly what it says. A graduate of George Mason University, he enjoys competing in local USPSA and multi-gun competitions whenever he’s not covering the latest in gun rights and firearm policy. Duncan is a regular contributor to AmmoLand News and serves as part of the editorial team responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.
