Trump DOJ: ‘Large Capacity Magazines’ Are ‘Actually Standard Issue Magazines’

Assistant AG for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon noted “large capacity magazines” are “standard issue magazines” during an appearance Tuesday on NEWSMAX’s Carl Higbie Frontline.

She made this point while explaining why the DOJ filed a lawsuit against Denver’s “assault weapons” ban and Colorado’s ban on magazines holding more than 15 rounds.

Breitbart News noted that the DOJ filed its suit against Denver on May 5, 2026, and then filed a suit against Colorado’s magazine ban the following day, May 6, 2026.

Dhillon told Higbie, “In the case of Denver, they have this fake term called ‘assault weapons’ and they use that to slant the public against [the] most commonly owned rifle in the United States…the AR-15.”

She continued, “The Supreme Court has made clear that commonly owned weapons that are used by law-abiding citizens for legal purposes are presumptively legal under the Second Amendment.”

Dhillon then shifted gears to the magazine ban, criticizing Colorado’s “use of semantics” in banning “large capacity magazines.”

She noted that “large capacity magazines are actually the standard issue magazines for many of [the firearms]” which are targeted by an “assault weapons” ban.

Moreover, Dhillon noted that the magazine ban allows anti-gun politicians to broaden the scope of their “assault weapons” ban so that even some of the most popular pistols are in the crosshairs of the gun control lobby.

She said, “Popular handguns like the Glock 17 [are] not useable when you have a 15-round magazine capacity restriction. This is really a backdoor way of banning these firearms that are popular and lawful and we won’t stand for it at the Department of Justice.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. He enjoys reading Philosophy and novels by Jack Carr and Nelson DeMille. He is a lever action man in an AR-15 world. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.