A lawsuit by the federal government against Washington D.C.'s "assault weapon" ban got better last week, with the Justice Department now bringing up suppressor reform as well.
The District has one of the longest local bans on suppressors, with a prohibition on owning, purchasing, or using a "silencer" codified (§ 22–4514(a)) in D.C. since 1934.
That could soon come to an end as a result of an amendment complaint filed by the Justice Department last week in U.S. v. District of Columbia (1:25-cv-04458). The lawsuit, originally filed last December, named the District as a defendant over its ban on popular semi-auto firearms, with the DOJ arguing it was an “unconstitutional incursion into the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens seeking to own protected firearms for lawful purposes."
Now added in the amended complaint, filed on May 15, is a section pointing out the unconstitutional nature of the District's suppressor ban.
"Unlike the NFA, the District does not merely regulate suppressors; it categorically bans them," reads the complaint. "Categorically banning an arm is different in kind and not merely in degree from regulating it. The District may enact a wide variety of firearm regulations, but the Second Amendment 'takes certain policy choices' – including a categorical ban of an arm in common use – 'off the table.'"
The DOJ points out that legal suppressors are seldom used in crime, for instance, with the ATF just averaging 44 suppressor-related cases per year, before going on to describe such devices as protected by the right to keep and bear arms.
Applying the Bruen framework to the District’s ban of suppressors, at the plain text step, “the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.” This includes all “modern instruments that facilitate armed self-defense.” Id. Suppressors fall within this category. Therefore, suppressors are presumptively protected. Again, the District cannot rebut the presumption of unconstitutionality, because there is no historical tradition analogous to a ban on an arm in common use.
"We are thrilled with this development, and remain in constant contact with the Department in an effort to expand the scope of their activity in the suppressor space," noted Knox Williams, president of the American Suppressor Association, in an email on the case to Guns.com.
U.S. v. D.C. is one of several cases in which the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division is taking local governments to task over gun control. It is currently involved in a suit against the Los Angeles County and the Virgin Islands over denied and delayed concealed carry permits, and has warned Virginia over its new "assault weapons" ban. The DOJ has also sided with 26 states in arguing that California's bullet control law violates the Second Amendment.
Suppressors are legal for consumers to own in 42 states, with bans in effect typically just in deep blue states with strict gun control, including California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island.
Banner image: Beretta PMXs 9mm with modular SilencerCo Omega 36M suppressor. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
