As much as gun-rights activists and pro-rights politicians have embraced the new Second Amendment Section within the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) civil rights division, anti-gun advocates somehow hate the new office even more.
That was made evident by a January 5 letter written to the DOJ by two longtime gun-ban advocates in the U.S. Senate. U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vermont, and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, jointly penned a letter criticizing the new office, which is intended to protect Americans’ Second Amendment rights from infringements by all levels of government.
As Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division, explained last month, the new office is necessary after the Biden administration’s constant attacks on the Second Amendment.
“The United States Supreme Court has had seven times the number of decisions on First Amendment cases versus Second Amendment,” Dhillon said in a video posted on social media. “So, these rights do not defend themselves. It requires constant vigilance from private lawyers and now the United States to help protect this important right, and I’m really proud of it. Look, this is done under President Trump’s leadership and Attorney General Bondi’s leadership.”
However, the creation of the new office hasn’t sat well with Sen. Durbin and Sen. Welch, two gun-ban advocates who have worked for years to infringe upon Americans’ right to keep and bear arms.
“Since President Trump took office, you have decimated the Division’s non-partisan workforce and changed the Division’s enforcement priorities to serve the President’s agenda in lieu of our federal civil rights laws,” the senators whined in the letter addressed to Dhillon. “The creation of the Second Amendment Section is another example of this profound retreat from the core mission of the Civil Rights Division.”
The senators also seemed frustrated that the new section does not meet any statutory mandate under federal law.
“In your video announcing its creation, you stated the Section will focus on purported injustices related to high costs and delays related to obtaining concealed carry permits and jurisdictions that have outlawed certain firearms,” they wrote. “According to its website, that will encompass conducting ‘pattern or practice’ investigations under a statute Congress passed in the wake of the horrific beating of Rodney King at the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department.”
The duo even complained about the fact that the DOJ had filed a lawsuit against Washington, D.C., over the District’s ban on so-called “assault weapons.”
“Just last week, the Second Amendment Section filed its first lawsuit, seeking to block the District of Columbia from enforcing its assault weapons ban,” the letter stated. “Multiple appellate courts have upheld the constitutionality of assault weapons bans. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to Maryland’s assault weapons ban, leaving in place the appellate court opinion upholding that state’s ban.”
Ultimately, the anti-gun senators can whine all they want about the Second Amendment Section and the actions it has and will take in the future. But there’s no doubt their whining will fall on deaf ears as the Trump Administration continues to throw more support behind the Second Amendment.
