SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
The Trump administration is making a point of treating gun rights as civil rights. Last year, it created a special Second Amendment section in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. Now it's going after local jurisdictions that it says are violating the right to bear arms. NPR's Martin Kaste joins us now to explain this new approach. Hi, Martin.
MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE: Hi, Sacha.
PFEIFFER: This Second Amendment section in the DOJ, what does it do?
KASTE: Well, it's part of the Civil Rights Division. You know, that's the division of the DOJ you've heard about for years that, you know, traditionally sues local authorities over things like racial discrimination or excessive force by police departments. But now they're taking that playbook and using it in defense of gun rights. The new section's mission is, as they say it, to ensure that law-abiding American citizens may responsibly possess, carry and use firearms. And the most high-profile example of this so far is their recent lawsuit against Denver. The DOJ says it objects to the city's long-standing ban on certain semiautomatic rifles - guns that the city calls assault weapons - and that includes AR-15s. Mayor Mike Johnston earlier this month responded to that and he responded to the Justice Department's pressure on the city to stop enforcing the ban.
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MIKE JOHNSTON: We're here today to let them know that our answer is hell no.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: No.
M JOHNSTON: No, we will not roll back a common-sense policy that has kept weapons of war off of these city streets for 37 years. No.
PFEIFFER: Martin, as you know, these local and state bans on guns like AR-15s have been challenged by gun rights groups before. What changes now that the Justice Department is suing?
KASTE: Yeah, you're right. You know, private groups, gun rights advocates have been challenging these bans for a while, and they've mostly lost on appeal. But the legal question is still a live one. The Supreme Court has been reviewing some potential cases involving AR-15 bans, looking at whether to take one of them up, maybe next term. And if they do, the gun rights groups people are optimistic because there's this doctrine the Supreme Court has developed over the last few years called common use, which gives special protection to weapons that have become a normal everyday thing to have, that aren't exotic or dangerous enough to justify restrictions. And the gun groups say semiautomatic rifles like AR-15s are in common use. Millions of people own them. And with the Justice Department now making this argument, they think they're in a better position than ever to make that argument.
I talked about this with Aidan Johnston. He's the chief lobbyist for Gun Owners of America, and his organization would like to see even more pro-gun moves by the Trump administration, but they are very happy about this civil rights approach.
AIDAN JOHNSTON: I think that the courts definitely look at the government as a plaintiff differently. And so I think it's going to be a huge deal to see the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice on the side of the Second Amendment in federal court. That especially will have a lot of weight when we get up to the Supreme Court level.
PFEIFFER: What is the view of gun safety or gun control advocates about the administration's civil rights approach to this?
KASTE: Well, they're not so happy, as you'd imagine. The group known as Brady called the Second Amendment section a diversion of scarce resources from what it considers, quote, "traditional and historical discrimination issues." Gun control groups also wonder, where does this end? If the administration is going to push to expand the scope of the Second Amendment rights to mean there can't be bans on semiautomatic rifles or large ammunition magazines, which are often used in these mass shootings, then does that also mean the next step is to extend these protections to full-on machine guns?
I should be clear - right now, the administration has not said it wants to do that, to roll back the national restriction on machine guns. But that is the stated goal of groups like the Gun Owners of America, and right now they believe they have the legal momentum on defining gun rights more broadly.
PFEIFFER: That is NPR's Martin Kaste. Thank you.
KASTE: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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