LAWYER: Biggest Gun Ban Going AWAY In This City?!

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:09]For most of my life, and probably yours, the federal government has been the enemy of gun owners, weaponizing our tax dollars against our rights. Today, the same federal government is in court defending your right to own an AR-15.

[00:00:26]That's right. The Department of Justice has just filed a lawsuit against a city that has been criminalizing AR-15 possession for nearly four decades. So folks, let's get into it.

[00:00:44]So this week, the US Department of Justice filed a federal lawsuit. We're talking early May 2026 targeting a major American city's 37year-old ban on AR-15 style rifles. That's right.

[00:00:58]It's targeting a millennialaged ban. The ordinance has been on the books since 1989.

[00:01:04]Under that law, it is a crime for any resident to carry, store, keep, manufacture, sell, or possess these so-called assault weapons, i.e. America's most popular sporting rifle, AR-15s, and the like. That ban predates basically the popularity of the worldwide web. It predates the fall of the Berlin Wall. For nearly four decades, law-abiding residents of that city have been treated like criminals for owning the most popular rifle in America. One day before the lawsuit dropped, the city's mayor held a press conference and told reporters his answer to the DOJ's demands was, and I'm quoting here, quote, "Hell no." End quote. I'm sure the DOJ said, "Hey buddy, do you mind taking down this ordinance, this legislation that you know is obviously unconstitutional?"

[00:02:02]Hence, the hell no. The DOJ immediately responded by filing the complaint 24 hours later. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch laid out the administration's position in plain language. The Constitution is no longer a suggestion. The Second Amendment is not a secondass right. The city's ban on commonlyowned semi-automatic rifles, he said, directly violates the right to keep and bear arms. Let's talk about why this case has some real teeth. For those of you who are unaware, we are talking about Denver, Colorado. The legal argument runs straight through the Supreme Court's most important Second Amendment rulings, starting with the 2008 Heler case. The court held that the Second Amendment protects weapons that are in common use for lawful purposes by law-abiding citizens. It said very clearly and slowly for the slow anti-gunners in the back that the government cannot ban an entire class of firearms or arms that Americans commonly own and use legally. That is the foundational rule that we're building off of here. everything else flows from that. So, the question that the DOJ is putting to the courts is a simple one.

[00:03:19]Are AR-15 style rifles in common use?

[00:03:23]The data on this, by the way, is unambiguous. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, NSSF, the 2025 firearm production report, which is built directly on data from the ATF's annual firearms manufacturing and export reports, there are now over 32 million AR-15 style rifles currently in legal circulation in the United States. I will hasten to add that they know about. So, 32 million million AR-15 style rifles. That is the most current sourced figure available so far. To put that number in perspective, it exceeds the entire population of Australia. And in 2025, a case in which a foreign government sued American gun manufacturers, we're talking about the Mexican case that we've covered here on this channel, all nine Supreme Court justices acknowledged that AR-15s are widely legal, purchased by many ordinary citizens, and are the most popular rifle in the country. Sounds like common use to me. All nine, that includes the justices who dissented on other grounds for other reasons. That level of agreement on a firearm's common use is about as solid ground and a legal foundation as any constitutional argument these days can get. The DOJ's complaint drives that point home very directly. When the city banned AR-15 style rifles, it banned an arm in common use for lawful purposes by law-abiding citizens. That is at its core a key part of the Heler test. That ban fails in at least 32 million known cases so far.

[00:05:09]Now, the city's attorneys fired back by pointing to six federal appellet courts that have upheld similar bans since the Brun decision in 2022. We're talking about the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 7th, 9th, and the DC circuits have all already done so on some particular level or another.

[00:05:26]Keep in mind, the way that our justice system works on the federal level is you got federal district courts. Those are the trial courts. That's where lawsuits are almost always started. This is where they are filed. From there, many states clump together into a couple different circuits where these federal appellet courts, these federal circuit courts, they are numbered things like 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 9th, 10th, and so forth. All those together then feed up to the United States Supreme Court. So you can have with these lifetime judicial appointments for both the federal trial courts as well as well frankly all the federal courts that we're talking about right now. You can get some of these that depending upon which president filled these vacancies that lean very right, lean very left are proun or anti-gun, you name it. News flash, the ones I just read off not exactly where you're going to go for fair-minded juristprudence when it comes to the Second Amendment. We know what those outcomes are going to be before you even open up the decision. But here is exactly why that argument could be vulnerable. You see, the United States Supreme Court Brun decision from back in 2022 is the reason why these prior rulings are shaky. Before Brun, federal courts were using an interest balancing test. I won't bore you on this, but the gist to it goes something like this. How do you determine if a law is constitutional? There's different ways they teach you about how this is in law school. If you want me to do a whole thing about this, let me know in the comments section down below. Otherwise, I'm assuming it's too nerdy. We're pressing through. The gist is they did an interest balancing test. Kind of one of those, well, on the one hand, you got the Constitution. On the other hand, Mom's Demand Action is pretty loud. So, you got that. I'm being facitious, but you get the idea.

[00:07:12]It essentially weighs the government's claimed public safety interests on the one hand against the individual constitutional rights on the other. I'm not supporting this. I'm just reporting, folks. The Supreme Court threw that entire way of handling the Second Amendment out, gone in the dumpster bin of history. Justice Thomas, writing for the majority in that case, was very explicit about that fact. The government cannot justify a gun regulation simply by arguing that well it serves an important interest or something like that. The government must demonstrate when it comes to the second amendment that the regulation the law is consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation. There is no historical tradition in this country of banning rifles in common use by law- abiding citizens.

[00:08:04]The DOJ is betting the federal courts and ultimately the Supreme Court will hold the line that Brun established. The complaint also takes direct aim at the political language that these bans often depend on. The filing quotes Justice Thomas, who has noted in previous opinions that the term so-called assault weapon is not a technical term that the firearms industry actually uses. That's a political term. It's a rhetorically charged political term developed by anti-gun publicists. If you want to know more about that, let me know in the comment section. But it carries no legal or technical meaning that distinguishes these rifles over here from say those rifles over there. That's part of the reason why what that term theoretically means has changed with place and time because it's just what politicians wrap into it. So the framing of that, what that means is that it's basically constitutionally irrelevant. What matters under Heler and Brun is whether the firearm is in common use for lawful purposes, not if we put an adjective that sounds scary like assault in front of it. At 32 million in circulation, I think that question answers itself, much like how all nine justices in the Supreme Court have already done. Hey, please excuse this brief interruption to bring you a word from our sponsor, me, or more specifically my law firm. You see, what you may not know about me is I'm not only an ex- prosecutor criminal defense attorney, but I employ a few dozen attorneys all over the great state of Wisconsin. My firm handles criminal defense, traffic law, divorce, family law, as well as estate planning all across the Dair State. We've got different wings of different attorneys doing different things, so you don't have to have some sort of just generalist handling your case should you decide to come in. So, what's the ask?

[00:09:52]Well, look, if you've been with me for my journey of at this point about 10 years and counting, not all of them on my own YouTube channel, but about 10 years and counting of putting out free legal education content that's out there. First off, thank you for joining me and thanks for watching this video.

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[00:10:34]Don't forget to stick around to the end of the video for our ever popular quote of the day. Now, back to the show.

[00:10:39]Here's another thing that's really exciting. There is something much larger that's happening here that deserves your attention in case this is news to you beyond just the happenings of this single lawsuit. The Justice Department in DC has created and stood up a dedicated second amendment section inside its civil rights division back in December 2025. I reported that here. I was optimistic. I was excited. But of course cautious cuz I don't know about you. I'm just skeptical of most things that come out of DC. It's the first federal office in American history, to my knowledge, specifically charged with investigating and challenging unconstitutional gun bans. We've seen and heard of some of their work here before. I've covered it here on this channel. The office began operating under President Trump's February 2025 executive order, which you may recall was all about protecting Second Amendment rights. Before this administration, the civil rights division focused on voting rights, housing discrimination, and employment law, among other things, but primarily those. Now, for the first time, gun rights are being treated as civil rights, actively defended by the same federal infrastructure that protects other constitutional liberties. This Denver lawsuit is actually not the first, not the second, or third. It's the fourth civil rights action that this office has filed. They already have sued Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department over concealed carry permit backlog stretching more than 18 months. I've covered that here before. They sued the US Virgin Islands over unconstitutional permit denials. The Second Amendment section is not dragging its feet. If this case moves up through federal courts and the Supreme Court takes it, the implications reach obviously far beyond one city's ordinance. Similar bans exist in multiple other states and I think we all know that's an understatement. If the court applies the Brun framework consistently, the same legal argument that challenges this ban challenges all of them. Over 32 million AR-15 like rifles are out there in common use. By the way, the number one most common reason people say why they own these rifles, self-defense, but they have enormous sporting use as well. This is not like just one particular thing.

[00:12:50]This is all the things all wrapped up in America's favorite rifle. This is not a policy debate. It is not open to local popularity vote. It is not going away.

[00:12:59]Keep your eyes on this case, just like I'm keeping my eyes not only in this case, but also on this section of the DOJ, which is personally I'm getting pretty excited about this. I have no doubt that once the political winds in DC swing another direction, this unit is going to get gutted and thrown out into the trash bin. But for right now, I'm going to cheer them on. I'm going to enjoy the ride. We'll see where this goes. Let me know in the comments section below what you think about all this, both this particular issue as well as, of course, we're talking about the DOJ section. Let me know what your comments and thoughts are. Be sure to hit that like button, share the video.

[00:13:36]We're going to close out with our ever popular quote of the day. This one comes from major activist Frederick Douglas in a speech on West India emancipation back on August 4th, 1857. Mr. Douglas said this quote, "Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them." Excellent words, Mr. Douglas. I appreciate you all tuning in, and I'll see you in the next one. Take care. Thanks for joining us on that video. And if you liked that one, then I think you're going to like these over here, too.