Harmeet Dhillon Just Called Out the Weapons Term Democrats Invented to Strip Your Rights

Democrats built an entire gun-control movement on two words they made up.

Now Trump's top civil rights enforcer just said it out loud on camera.

And what she said next has every blue-city mayor sweating.

Dhillon Names the Scam Behind the Label

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon sat down with Washington Gun Law this week and went straight at the language Democrats have used for decades to criminalize legal firearms.

"That's a made-up category, this concept of 'assault rifles' or 'assault weapons,'" Dhillon said.

"It's just an epithet applied to an effective and popular firearm or a category of firearms."

She was talking specifically about Denver's ban on the AR-15 – the most popular rifle in America – which the Trump DOJ sued the city over last Tuesday.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche didn't mince words when the lawsuit landed: "The Constitution is not a suggestion and the Second Amendment is not a second-class right."

The Phrase Democrats Invented in 1989

Here's the history Democrats hope you've forgotten.

The New York Times documented it years ago: the term "assault weapon" was a political invention – Democrats created a category of guns that didn't exist as any technical firearms classification, then banned it.

The 1994 federal ban that followed lasted ten years. University of Pennsylvania professor Christopher Koper studied it and concluded: "We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation's recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence."

Congress let it expire in 2004 and never renewed it.

The term stuck anyway – which was always the real goal.

Justice Clarence Thomas called it out in a Stenberg v. Carhart dissent, describing "assault weapon" as a "tendentious political term developed by anti-gun publicists." The DOJ's own complaint against Denver uses identical framing, calling the city's use of the phrase "politically charged rhetoric."

Democrats spent decades building a movement on a label their own legal opponents now openly mock.

Denver Said "Hell No" and Got Sued Anyway

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston thought he could stare down the Trump DOJ.

He held a press conference the day before the lawsuit and said "Hell, no" when asked if the city would stop enforcing its 37-year-old gun ban.

The lawsuit landed the next morning.

The complaint is blunt: AR-15-style rifles are owned legally by tens of millions of Americans, and Denver has banned an arm "in common use for lawful purposes." Under the Supreme Court's Heller and Bruen decisions, that ends the legal argument.

Dhillon didn't stop at Denver.

Her office also sued Colorado over its ban on standard-capacity magazines – pointing out that even the Glock 17, one of the most popular handguns sold anywhere in America, runs afoul of the state's restrictions.

"Colorado's ban on certain magazines is political virtue signaling at the expense of Americans' constitutional right to keep and bear arms," Dhillon said.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser – currently running for governor as a Democrat – called it a "dangerous overreach."

Johnston and Weiser are fighting a legal battle the Supreme Court has already decided against them.

The Ruling That Ends This Debate

Dhillon told Washington Gun Law she expects the Supreme Court to declare AR-15s legal across the entire country.

She pointed to the Court's unanimous ruling in the Smith & Wesson case establishing the AR-15 as the most commonly owned rifle in the United States – the exact legal test that shields it under Heller.

Justice Kavanaugh has already signaled the Court needs to take up AR-15 bans within the next term or two.

Justice Thomas has said the Court should have already overturned them.

This is where thirty years of Democratic language manipulation runs out of road.

They invented a phrase to scare the public, passed a ban that their own researchers admitted didn't work, watched it expire, and kept using the phrase anyway.

Harmeet Dhillon just handed them the legal bill for all of it.

Sources:

• AWR Hawkins, "Harmeet Dhillon: The Term 'Assault Weapons' Is 'Just a Made-Up Category,'" Breitbart, May 10, 2026.
• AWR Hawkins, "Harmeet Dhillon: SCOTUS Will Rule AR-15s 'Legal All Over America,'" Breitbart, May 6, 2026.
• "Justice Department Sues the City of Denver for Unconstitutional Weapons Bans," U.S. Department of Justice, May 6, 2026.
• AWR Hawkins, "Trump DOJ Sues Colorado Over Ban of 'Standard Capacity' Magazines," Breitbart, May 6, 2026.
• AWR Hawkins, "Harmeet Dhillon: AR-15 Rifles 'Are Protected by the Constitution,'" Breitbart, April 16, 2026.