In a twist that has Second Amendment advocates grinning from ear to ear, the U.S. Department of Justice has finally dusted off a 37-year-old Denver ordinance banning so-called assault weapons—and they’re not just challenging it; they’re demanding its outright repeal. The timing couldn’t be more poetic: this bombshell filing comes hot on the heels of Denver police releasing a massive dump of public records that lay bare the city’s skyrocketing violent crime rates, including a surge in homicides and shootings that no amount of magazine limits or cosmetic feature bans could prevent. As the Denver Post laments in their headline, This Really Isn’t a Good Time for the DOJ to poke this bear, but from a pro-2A perspective, it’s the perfect storm—exposing how decades of feel-good gun control has left law-abiding Coloradans defenseless while criminals roam free with illegal firepower.
Digging deeper, this isn’t some random bureaucratic whim; it’s a direct shot across the bow in the post-Bruen era, where the Supreme Court’s 2022 landmark ruling demands that gun laws align with America’s historical tradition of firearm rights. Denver’s ban, a relic from 1987, predates modern AR-15s and was never about public safety—it’s a zombie law propped up by anti-gun hysteria that ignores the data. Those freshly released police records? They paint a grim picture: Denver’s murder rate hit record highs in 2023, with gang violence and illegal guns driving the chaos, not semi-auto rifles in civilian hands. The DOJ’s move underscores a federal pivot, likely influenced by mounting circuit court wins like Rahimi’s narrow carve-out for domestic abusers, signaling that blanket assault weapon prohibitions are on life support. For context, similar bans in Boulder and elsewhere in Colorado are now dominoes waiting to fall, especially as states like Illinois and California face their own legal reckonings.
The implications for the 2A community are massive: this could cascade into a nationwide unraveling of urban gun bans, forcing blue-city holdouts to confront their failed policies. It’s a reminder that patience pays—decades of litigation groundwork by groups like the NRA and FPC are bearing fruit, turning public safety narratives on their head. Gun owners in Denver, long treated as second-class citizens, now have federal muscle backing their rights, potentially restoring ARs and standard-capacity mags to store shelves. Watch this space; if the DOJ prevails, it’s not just a win for Colorado—it’s a blueprint for dismantling the patchwork of local tyrannies eroding the right to keep and bear arms. Stay vigilant, patriots; the tide is turning.
