On June 13, 2025, the Civil Rights Division of President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice announced the filing of an amicus brief supporting an NRA lawsuit against Illinois’ “assault weapons” ban.

The brief was announced by Assistant Attorney General for DOJ’s Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon. In a post to X, Dhillon noted, “The Second Amendment is not a second-class right. See you in court, Illinois.”

The amicus brief’s introduction points to Bruen (2022) and says in part:

Three years ago, the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision meant to break a habit developed by some States of treating the Second Amendment as “a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other” constitutional rights. …[Bruen] (2022).

Regrettably, not every State got the message. Just a few months after Bruen, Illinois outlawed some of the most commonly used rifles and magazines in America via a so-called “assault weapons” ban. In doing so,  Illinois violated the Supreme Court’s clear directive that States cannot prohibit arms that are “in common use” by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes. …[Heller] (2008).

The Civil Rights Division’s brief centers on two issues:

1. Whether the Act violates the Second Amendment to the extent that it bans the possession of firearms that are in common use by law-abiding citizens for lawful reasons.

2. Whether the Act violates the Second Amendment to the extent that it bans the possession of magazines and other firearm attachments that are in common use by law-abiding citizens for lawful reasons.

The brief then notes that the AR-15 is among the “arms” protected by the Second Amendment, and that those protections also include the magazines necessary to feed ammunition to the rifles.

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