Justice Department sues Virginia, California over gun laws

The Justice Department announced Wednesday that it had filed lawsuits against two states for what the department alleged are “unconstitutional” restrictions on sales of certain types of guns.

In Virginia, the department is targeting a law that banned the sale of automatic weapons. In California, it is suing over a newly enacted law that restricts the sale of some firearms with a trigger that could be modified into a “machinegun-convertible pistol.” The California law went into effect on July 1. 

In a statement, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said that “the Constitution is not a suggestion” and “the Second Amendment is a sacred right belonging to all Americans, even those in California.”

The DOJ said its Virginia suit — which is against both the state and the state police — alleges that a new law “unconstitutionally bans the purchase and sale of ordinary semi-automatic rifles owned by millions of Americans.”

“The Virginia law makes the commercial purchase of AR-15-style rifles a crime,” the Justice Department said in a news release. “The AR-15 rifle is the most popular rifle in America. Virginia’s enforcement of the new ban is a pattern or practice of conduct by the commonwealth’s law enforcement officers that deprives the citizens of Virginia of their constitutional right to buy and sell arms protected by the Second Amendment.”

The department said in a separate news release that its suit against California seeks to halt the state’s Glock ban and prevent enforcement of California’s “Handgun Roster,” which limits what legal firearms can be legally purchased. It characterized both the ban and the roster as unlawful.

On Tuesday the Supreme Court said it will consider in its next term whether the Second Amendment guarantees the right to have AR-15-style rifles. It will hear two cases challenging local and state laws outlawing AR-15s and similar semi-automatic rifles. One involves an ordinance in Cook County, Illinois, and the other centers on a Connecticut law.

In two separate rulings last month, the Supreme Court struck down a law in Hawaii that restricted guns on private property that is open to the public and the high court sided with a Texas man who challenged the federal ban that barred certain drug users from having firearms.