President Trump has cast himself as a fierce guardian of the Second Amendment, but his Justice Department is running a two-track game: suing local governments it says go too far in restricting access to guns, while at the same time asking courts to keep some federal firearm bans firmly in place. The result is a legal tug‑of‑war that could redefine who can carry where and which categories of people the government may lawfully disarm.
On the enforcement side, the department has gone after a range of local rules and agencies. Officials have announced probes touching Los Angeles County and have filed federal complaints challenging gun regulations in the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to department releases and related filings. Justice Department.
At the same time, Justice Department lawyers are defending long‑standing federal prohibitions in court. The government has urged the Supreme Court to allow prosecutions under the federal ban on firearm possession by "unlawful users" of controlled substances in United States v. Hemani, as outlined in case materials and summaries of the dispute. Legal Information Institute.
That two‑sided posture tracks directives from the White House and the department. In February 2025 the president ordered a review of agency rules and actions that "may impinge" on the right to keep and bear arms, and DOJ officials have signaled a new enforcement focus on protecting those rights. White House executive order.
The ripple effects are already showing up locally. In Los Angeles, the federal inquiry followed reporting that applicants faced months‑long waits for concealed‑carry permits, delays that critics say function as practical denials of the right to carry. The same national litigation push is testing D.C.'s registration and ban regime, with court dockets now logging the back‑and‑forth. Los Angeles Times; Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse.
What the Courts Will Decide
The immediate legal question in Washington is whether Congress and the courts may categorically bar particular groups from possessing firearms and, separately, whether local permitting practices amount to unconstitutional burdens under post‑Bruen doctrine. The Hemani argument asks the Supreme Court to square modern safety concerns with historical analogues that could justify temporarily disarming certain people. SCOTUSblog.
What to watch next: the Supreme Court's oral argument schedule and the coming motions and rulings in the Los Angeles and D.C. matters, which together could set a new playbook for how the federal government enforces or narrows gun rules. Docket entries and case pages at the Legal Information Institute will be the clearest place to track the court filings and timetable as they unfold.
