The US Department of Justice, under the Trump administration, has sued the Washington, DC government over its gun laws. The lawsuit challenges DC’s restrictions on semiautomatic firearms, arguing they violate the Second Amendment. The suit was filed Monday in the District Court for the District of Columbia. The Metropolitan Police Department and outgoing police chief Pamela Smith are named as defendants. The Justice Department said in its filing, "The United States of America brings this lawsuit to protect the rights that have been guaranteed for 234 years and which the Supreme Court has explicitly reaffirmed several times over the last two decades." This is the second gun-rights lawsuit this month; earlier, the Justice Department sued the US Virgin Islands for restricting gun ownership. Washington DC is enforcing bans on AR-15 style rifles and other semiautomatic weapons. The Justice Department claims these bans are unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller ruling. That ruling confirmed individuals have the right to own firearms "in common use today," independent of militia service. The court stated, "There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms," but also noted "the right was not unlimited." The lawsuit says DC goes beyond those limits by stopping residents from registering popular firearms and criminalizing possession of unregistered weapons. The complaint reads, "Specifically, the District denies law-abiding citizens the ability to register a wide variety of commonly used semi-automatic firearms, such as the Colt AR-15 series rifles, which is among the most popular of firearms in America." The Justice Department calls DC’s restrictions "arbitrary" and based on "cosmetics, appearance, or the ability to attach accessories." It argues the law does not fairly consider whether these guns are in common lawful use today. Unlike the 2008 Heller case, no individual DC residents are plaintiffs now. The administration claims authority to sue under a 1994 federal crime law. The Metropolitan Police Department declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation.