President Donald Trump’s newly confirmed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, announced her office will no longer prosecute certain violations of a D.C. law that makes carrying non-permitted rifles or shotguns in public a felony.
The decision comes as Trump, insisting that Washington, D.C. crime is rampant and declaring a “crime emergency” in the nation’s capital, has seized control of the Metropolitan Police Department and deployed more than one thousand federal agents — including FBI, DEA, ATF, ICE, and National Guard troops — to patrol the city’s streets.
“The new policy, which Pirro said was crafted by the Justice Department and its solicitor general, marks a break with past practice,” The Washington Post reported. “Prosecutors have used the D.C. law at issue — which prohibits carrying shotguns or rifles, with narrow exceptions for permit-holders — to charge defendants in several high-profile incidents, including a 2019 shotgun attack in Northeast Washington and the ‘Pizzagate’ shooter who targeted a restaurant in the city’s Chevy Chase neighborhood with an AR-15 rifle and a handgun in 2016.”
The move also comes as the Trump administration has made it easier to obtain gun permits in D.C., reducing the waiting time from months to just five days, the Post reported.
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Critics have denounced the move.
“It’s not about safety. It’s never been about safety. They don’t care about crime. They want control,” exclaimed attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.
“More evidence that the DC police takeover has nothing to do with stopping crime,” wrote U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT). “It’s just about politics and suppressing dissent. They are literally refusing to enforce gun laws – because [they] have to pretend the gun industry’s ‘more guns keep us safer’ BS is true.”
“Red-state National Guardsmen weren’t enough, we are going to have militia-types on the streets pretty soon,” warned Media Matters’ senior fellow Matthew Gertz.
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“Nothing makes you feel safe in the Nation’s capital quite like pardoning 1500 insurrectionists and telling them they can carry shotguns next time,” New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin remarked sarcastically.
“I don’t think prioritizing locking up delivery drivers because of their immigration status while letting people who illegally possess deadly weapons off easy is a good way to improve public safety!” commented attorney Steven Jessen-Howard.
Professor of law and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance mockingly wrote: “No sandwiches, though,” referring to Pirro’s office reportedly charging with a felony a man who threw a hero sandwich at a federal law enforcement agent.