Just over a year ago, a hostile federal executive branch had gun owners under siege on all fronts. The White House “Office of Gun Violence Prevention” was encouraging states to implement so-called “red flag” firearm confiscation laws, and according to allegations from the U.S. House Oversight Committee, potentially colluding with gun-control activists to target a prominent member of the firearm industry. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was misinterpreting federal law to intimidate gun owners from engaging in lawful private firearm transfers and driving gun dealers out of business under an oppressive “zero-tolerance” policy. The federal public health apparatus was churning out reams of dubious anti-gun “science” and propaganda—going so far as funding an item encouraging dentists to lecture patients on firearms.
Upon taking office, President Donald Trump lifted this siege.
The Trump administration shuttered the White House gun-control office on day one. On Feb. 7, 2025, President Trump signed the executive order “Protecting Second Amendment Rights,” demanding the attorney general conduct a full review of Biden-era anti-gun regulations and policies. In April, ATF announced its plan to revisit its private transfer rulemaking and end “zero tolerance.” The administration has removed gun-control propaganda from government public health websites and exercised some much-needed prudence in research-funding decisions.
Working to get gun rights back to where they were before the disastrous Biden-Harris administration has been important. But the second Trump administration hasn’t been content to play defense for gun owners. As the actions of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division (CRT) illustrate, this administration is intent on moving the ball forward.
The DOJ’s CRT was created following the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and has accrued further enforcement authority with subsequent civil-rights legislation. As the name suggests, the division is tasked with protecting Americans’ civil rights, including an ever-expanding panoply of legislated positive “rights.” Conspicuously absent from the CRT’s work over its first six decades was any meaningful effort to protect Americans’ fundamental right to keep and bear arms enumerated in the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights.
That all changed when President Trump nominated Second Amendment rights litigation veteran Harmeet Dhillon to serve as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights and oversee the CRT.
In December, Dhillon announced the creation of a dedicated Second Amendment Section at the CRT. The move finally put protecting the natural right embodied in the Second Amendment on par with Congress-prescribed rights that enjoy dedicated CRT sections, such as immigrant and employee rights, disability rights and educational opportunity.
In a video announcing the new right to keep and bear arms section, Dhillon affirmed her belief that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right and that she was “really excited about” the new office. The assistant attorney general added, “For the first time, the DOJ Civil Rights Division and the DOJ at large will be protecting and advancing our citizens’ right to bear arms as part of our civil rights work.”
The response from gun-control supporters was predictable.
Brady (formerly Handgun Control Inc.) issued a press release with the title, “Brady condemns DOJ launch of new ‘gun rights’ office that will endanger gun violence prevention laws.” According to the item, the group’s favored gun-control measures are “policies [that] are in no way inconsistent with the Second Amendment.” Of course, if that were truly the case, Brady would have nothing to fear from the new civil rights section.
So far, the CRT under Dhillon has given civilian disarmament advocates reason for concern and gun owners reason for optimism.
Even before formal creation of the Second Amendment Section, on Sept. 30, 2025, the CRT filed suit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleging the office was not complying with the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022).
In Bruen, the Court struck down New York’s century-old discretionary carry-licensing regime, which required license applicants to justify a special need to carry for self-defense. In doing so, the Court affirmed that “the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.”
The CRT complaint connected the dots on the AR-15’s commonality in a manner that even the most anti-gun jurist should find impossible to ignore.
Following the ruling, some of the dwindling minority of jurisdictions with discretionary carry-licensing schemes responded with unyieldingness. Sometimes this meant legislation making it more difficult to obtain a license and undermining its usefulness, others used bureaucratic obstinance to nullify the right.
The CRT’s suit charged the L.A. sheriff’s office with the latter, alleging the agency engaged in a “pattern or practice of law enforcement officer conduct that deprives persons of rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States” in issuing California Carry Concealed Weapons Licenses. Specifically, the sheriff’s office engaged in a “systematic practice of delaying the processing of concealed carry weapon permit applications.”
The details of L.A.’s licensing procedure cited in the CRT suit are staggering. The complaint noted that 3,982 new license applications were filed between Jan. 2, 2024, and March 31, 2025, but as of May 8, 2025, only two licenses had been issued. The suit noted that of the applications still pending, required interviews “are already scheduled for as late as November 2026—more than two years after some applications were first filed.” A California Carry Concealed Weapons License is only valid for two years.
In a case that touches upon similar issues, on Dec. 16, 2025, the CRT filed suit in the U.S. District Court of the Virgin Islands St. Thomas and St. John Division against the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) and the Virgin Islands Police Department (VIPD).
Those in the Virgin Islands are required to obtain a license to possess or carry firearms. The suit alleged that USVI and VIPD operate the licensing regime in an impermissible discretionary manner and “have continued to obstruct and systematically deny law-abiding American citizens this fundamental right by systematically delaying the processing of applications and imposing unconstitutional conditions on the exercise of this constitutional right.”
The complaint noted that, akin to pre-Bruen New York, “USVI law generally denies private individuals the right to carry a firearm unless such a person ‘established to the satisfaction of the Commissioner [of VIPD] that he has good reason to fear death or great injury to his person or property.’” Moreover, the suit took issue with the defendants’ requirement “that applicants submit to intrusive and warrantless home searches as a condition of obtaining a gun permit.”
Shifting from the question of who may bear arms to what arms individuals may have, on Dec. 22, 2025, the CRT filed suit against Washington, D.C., in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for its ban on commonly owned semi-automatic firearms, such as the AR-15.
D.C. law requires registration of firearms but denies registration for a swath of common firearms it deems “assault weapons.” Citing the U.S. Supreme Court Case District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the suit explained that the “Second Amendment of the United States Constitution generally protects the right of law-abiding individuals to keep and bear arms in common use for lawful purposes such as self-defense while in the home.”
Gun owners know that the AR-15 is the most popular rifle in the U.S. Citing polling data, a 2023 Washington Post item reported that “6 percent of Americans own an AR-15, about 1 in 20.”
The CRT complaint connected the dots on the AR-15’s commonality in a manner that even the most anti-gun jurist should find impossible to ignore. The suit pointed out that in the recent unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision in Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos (2025), the Court noted, “The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in the country.”
Further, the new and improved CRT isn’t just initiating suits, it’s lending the federal government’s weight to ongoing litigation.
In September 2025, Dhillon and the CRT filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in the case Barnett v. Raoul. Like the CRT’s own case against the federal enclave, the case concerns Illinois’ ban on commonly owned semi-automatic firearms, including the AR-15.
As with the DOJ-initiated case, the CRT made clear that “the AR-15 is in common use by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” and, therefore, cannot be banned. Dhillon also participated in the oral arguments to drive home the federal government’s position.
On Jan. 5, 2026, the CRT filed an amicus brief in the long-running case Rhode v. Bonta, which is before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The case challenges California’s background checks for ammunition purchasers.
The brief described the not-so-Golden State’s ammunition background-check regime as “novel,” explaining, “California is the first State in this country’s history to require an in-person background check before every ammunition transaction.” In stark contrast, the Bruen decision made clear that “[o]nly if a firearm regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s ‘unqualified command.’”
As witnessed during the Biden-Harris administration, and earlier, the federal government has routinely been used to indulge gun-control advocates and undermine Americans’ Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Conversely, a core function of the federal government should be as guarantor of fundamental rights—with those enumerated in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights taking chief priority. With the CRT’s work under the leadership of President Trump and Assistant Attorney General Dhillon, the federal executive branch is at long last positioned to help carry out this vital duty.
