DOJ sues DC government over AR-15 ban

The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on Monday against the Washington, D.C., local government over its laws banning various semiautomatic guns, including AR-15s, alleging the laws violate the Second Amendment.

The lawsuit targets a local law that requires district residents to register firearms with the Metropolitan Police Department as a condition of legal possession. The DOJ alleged that the law unconstitutionally denies residents from registering “a wide variety of commonly used semi-automatic firearms, such as the Colt AR-15 series rifles, which is among the most popular of firearms in America, and a variety of other semi-automatic rifles and pistols that are in common use.”