U.S. Department of Justice sues VIPD over gun laws

Source: The Virgin Islands Daily News

11 hrs ago


The federal government is challenging the territory’s gun laws in court. On Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Adam Sleeper announced that the U.S. Department of Justice had filed a complaint against the V.I. Police Department and Commissioner Mario Brooks. “The territory’s firearms licensing laws and practices are inconsistent with the Second Amendment,” Sleeper said in a statement. “This lawsuit seeks to uphold the rights of law-abiding citizens to bear arms in the U.S. Virgin Islands.”

The 12-page filing in U.S. District Court is only the second case brought by the Trump Administration’s new “Second Amendment Section” of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, which has traditionally focused on enforcing anti-discrimination laws. Government House issued a statement that the V.I. Department of Justice is “reviewing the filing in coordination with the Virgin Islands Police Department.”

According to the complaint, the federal government is asking the court to declare that the Virgin Islands government is violating the Second Amendment by delaying or refusing to grant firearm licenses, and are “effectively forcing applicants to abandon their constitutional rights through administrative exhaustion.”

The complaint also requests a permanent injunction prohibiting the V.I. government from implementing certain laws and regulations, and specifically challenges requirements that applicants for firearm permits must install gun safes and submit to “warrantless searches of their homes.”

Read more: https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/u-s-department-of-justice-sues-v-i-police-department-over-gun-laws/article_30096ce2-0238-4f2b-8198-a28709042502.html