Second Amendment

The DOJ Challenges Virginia's 'Assault Firearm' Law and California's Glock Ban

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon argues that both laws are unconstitutional because they prohibit arms in common use for lawful purposes.

Jacob Sullum | 7.6.2026 5:25 PM

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Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom)

In a lawsuit filed last week, the Justice Department argues that Virginia's recently enacted "assault weapon" ban violates the Second Amendment, raising the same issue that the Supreme Court recently agreed to address in cases involving similar laws. Also last week, the Justice Department challenged California restrictions that make it illegal to sell handguns commonly sold in other states, including Glock pistols.

Virginia's law, which Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed on April 13, makes it a crime to manufacture, import, sell, purchase, or transfer "assault firearms." It defines that category to include semiautomatic center-fire rifles that accept detachable magazines and have any of five listed features: 1) a folding or adjustable stock, 2) a thumbhole stock or pistol grip, 3) a second handgrip or protruding grip that can be held by the non-trigger hand, 4) a grenade launcher, or 5) a threaded barrel that can be used to attach a muzzle break, a muzzle compensator, a sound suppressor, or a flash suppressor.

That definition encompasses some of the most popular firearms sold in the United States, including AR-15-style rifles. In January, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry's trade association, reported that Americans own more than 32 million "modern sporting rifles," its preferred term for the models covered by bans like Virginia's. Survey data suggest that somewhere between 16 million and 25 million Americans have owned AR-15-style rifles. They commonly report using them for lawful purposes such as self-defense, hunting, and target shooting.

Those facts are constitutionally relevant. In the landmark 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court said the Second Amendment guarantees the right to own "bearable arms" that are "in common use" for "lawful purposes like self-defense." And under the test established by the Court's 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, Virginia has the burden of showing that its law is "consistent with this Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation."

The state cannot possibly do that, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon argues in the Justice Department's complaint, which was filed in the Eastern District of Virginia. "Americans own and use for lawful purposes tens of millions of AR-15-style rifles," she writes, and "there is no historical tradition of banning arms in common use."

The Firearms Policy Coalition and two other Second Amendment groups make the same basic argument in their challenge to Virginia's law, which they filed on May 14. That argument also figures in previous Justice Department lawsuits challenging "assault weapon" bans enacted by Denver and the District of Columbia. And it is at the center of two cases that the Supreme Court will hear during its next term, which involve rifle restrictions imposed by Connecticut and........

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