By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project
The DOJ using the Civil Rights Division to sue Colorado and Denver over its magazine ban.
The Rocky Mountain Voice article at bottom details how the Department of Justice is using its Civil Rights Division, along with a novel use of a civil rights law passed back during the Rodney King Era to sue Colorado and Denver over their magazine ban and “assault weapons” ban, respectively.
A quote from the piece fleshes this out some:
“The law driving both lawsuits came out of the aftermath of Rodney King. Congress passed §12601 in 1994 after Los Angeles erupted in riots, giving the federal government authority to intervene when police departments repeatedly violated constitutional rights. DOJ has used the law fewer than 100 times in the three decades since. Until this year, never to enforce the Second Amendment. The lawsuits mark a significant expansion in how DOJ is using federal civil-rights authority.”
Besides the novel use of the law in this circumstance, it’s worth noting something else unusual. The groups being sued are, as they are when this law has been applied in other civil rights violation contexts, the police. Specifically the Department of Public Safety.
More details are in the article if you’d like them.
A common lament by those who oppose this sort of use of the Civil Rights Division boil down essentially to “Hey! You can’t use this law for that!” Quoting again from the Rocky Mountain Voice piece (copied with links left intact):
“The legal counterpunch came from Denver first. In an April 28 response letter to the DOJ, Denver City Attorney Miko Brown went after the statute itself. ‘Your reliance on 34 U.S.C. Section 12601 as a basis for your threatened lawsuit is neither compelling nor proper,’ Brown wrote. ‘Congress enacted Section 12601 in the wake of the horrific Rodney King beating to provide the federal government with tools to combat excessive force and other kinds of misconduct in state and local police departments. Your effort to use Section 12601 to mount a facial challenge to the City’s democratically-enacted Ordinance flies in the face of text, history, and past practice.’ Weiser made the same case after the DOJ sued the state on May 6. ‘Using federal civil rights law to put Coloradans at greater risk of gun violence is a dangerous overreach by the Justice Department, and this lawsuit turns the mission of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division on its head,’ Weiser said in a statement.”
Hogwash.
Implicit in arguments such as these is the idea that the Second Amendment sits in second place relative to other rights.
I for one don’t hold that view. Civil rights are civil rights if they’re in the Constitution (especially if they’re in plain text right there near the top). If police departments, acting on laws passed which don’t meet with current US Supreme Court decisions, are impinging on people’s rights, it doesn’t matter to me which right it is. Simply because administrations in the past chose not to defend all our rights against encroachment doesn’t mean it’s improper to start now.
I am glad that Trump has revisited the priorities of the DOJ and is using them to defend all the rights we have, not just the ones that some find politically expedient.
I’m sure we’ll hear more on this in the future, so expect updates.
READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.