Brady Responds to Trump DOJ Intention to Make Assault Weapons Available Nationwide through Legal Challenge to Denver Ban

Assistant Attorney General Dhillon will state in an interview tonight on Real America’s Voice that the DOJ is working to ensure that the Supreme Court forces assault weapons onto communities nationwide

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 6, 2025 — Tonight, an interview will air on the Just the News, No Noise show on the Real America’s Voice network with Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, during which she asserts that the Trump administration's lawsuit this week against the city of Denver's assault weapon ban will lead to a Supreme Court decision legalizing the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, and similar assault weapons, in every jurisdiction in America. "We intend to make sure they do that," she will note.

Kris Brown, President of Brady, the nation’s oldest gun violence prevention organization, responded:

Tonight, Assistant AG Dhillon will display the sickening hubris and wanton disregard for Americans’ safety from gun violence that has dominated the Trump administrations. Assault weapons are military-style weapons of war; they do not belong in places of peace like our streets, our stores, our places of worship, and our restaurants and movie theaters. The Second Amendment protects lawful self-defense, but assault weapons and large-capacity magazines are designed for offensive combat operations — which in the hands of a mass shooter has led to the horrific tragedies we have seen time and again in Aurora, Parkland, Buffalo, Uvalde, Newtown, Orlando, Las Vegas, and so many other communities. Instead of working to end popular assault weapons bans across the country, enacted by their duly-elected representatives, through a federal court system that doesn’t face voters and elections, the Trump administration should work with its allies in Congress to finally reinstate our federal assault weapons ban and save lives once again.

More on the lethality of assault weapons and bans on their sale:

• 155% more people are shot and 47% more people die in incidents where assault weapons or large-capacity magazines are used.
• Currently, 10 states and Washington, D.C., and numerous localities, ban assault weapons, and two more regulate elements of their possession or purchase. 
• When an assault weapon and/or a high-capacity magazine is used in a public mass shooting, nearly 14 times as many people are injured, and twice as many people are killed.
• During the 10-year period the federal assault weapons ban was in effect, mass shooting fatalities were 70% less likely to occur compared to the periods before and after the ban
• Today, there are over 19.8 million AR-15-style rifles in circulation in the US, which is a 132.9% increase in the number of AR-15 rifles in circulation when the Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired in 2004.
• 63% of Americans support a ban on assault weapons.