A couple of weeks ago U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. Jeanine Pirro announced that her office would no longer be prosecuting individuals for openly carrying registered rifles or shotguns in the District, citing a DOJ memo that expressed concern that the District law infringes on the Second Amendment rights of residents.
Now Pirro’s office says it will no longer prosecute individuals caught in possession of magazines that can hold more than ten rounds of ammunition, once again citing DOJ’s policy of protecting our Second Amendment rights.
U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro told a court this week that her office – which handles the majority of violent crime and gun violence in D.C. – will no longer charge people for carrying high-capacity magazines, calling the city’s 17-year-old ban on magazines that hold more than 10 bullets “unconstitutional.”
… the Trump administration’s new view was on display this week, when Pirro’s office notified the D.C. Court of Appeals they were moving to vacate a 2023 conviction against Tyree Benson, a D.C. man who was caught with an illegal handgun and a magazine with 31 bullets in it.
Benson’s attorney – who did not respond to a request for comment – had appealed the conviction, arguing that all the gun charges he faced should be tossed out because the underlying laws violated the Second Amendment. While Pirro didn’t go that far, she did tell the court that her office now views the city’s ban on high-capacity magazines as unconstitutional.
“Although the United States initially defended that provision against constitutional attack, the United States has changed its position as to the validity of this statute under the Second Amendment,” Pirro’s office wrote, referencing the fact that at the time Benson’s initial appeal was filed – in 2023 – the Biden administration supported the legality of the city’s ban.
This policy is consistent with some of the other moves we’re seeing from the Department of Justice, including its request to take part in upcoming oral arguments at the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals over the gun and magazine bans imposed by Illinois a few years ago. Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the DOJ Civil Rights Division, will be siding with the plaintiffs on September 22. That, in turn, comes after the DOJ filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs back in June, which argued that bans on AR-15s and other semi-automatic firearms that are in common use violate the Second Amendment.
As of now, though, it appears that Pirro and her office are still enforcing violations of D.C.’s ban on so-called assault weapons. Pirro’s prior announcement regarding the carrying of rifles and shotguns only applied to those firearms that are registered with the Metropolitan Police Department, and since D.C. bans “assault weapons” they can’t be registered with the local police.
We’ll see if the DOJ offers up any more guidance regarding the possession of commonly owned semi-automatic long guns going forward, but the agency has already taken several steps in the right direction when it comes to enforcing D.C.’s draconian gun laws. Gun control activists, of course, have a different take on the DOJ’s directive.
“Defying the judiciary and ignoring D.C.’s law is reckless and irresponsible, does nothing to make the District safer, and will inevitably put lives at risk. If the Trump administration wants to save lives and reduce crime, they should make it harder for dangerous people to access guns and cause harm—this does the opposite,” said Spencer Myers, a state and local policy attorney at the gun violence prevention organization GIFFORDS Law Center.
Giffords has no problem with cities ignoring state law and adopting local gun control ordinances that clearly violate state firearm preemption statues. Giffords Law Center has authored several amicus briefs in support of those cities that flagrantly ignore preemption laws.
And while Myers complains that the DOJ policy is going to make it easier for dangerous people to get their hands on guns, violent crimes have fallen since Donald Trump focused his attention on crime in Washington, D.C. Yes, statistics show that crime was already dropping when Trump declared a crime emergency and took control of the D.C. police (that order expired on Wednesday of this week), but the move to bring D.C. law more in line with the Second Amendment hasn’t led to the spike in crime that anti-gunners like Myers have predicted.
A note of caution about the DOJ’s new policy, though. Pirro has repeatedly said that her office will prosecute anyone illegally possessing a firearm, so while folks with a D.C. carry permit (and residents who keep their registered handguns at home) can now equip their pistols with magazines that can hold more than ten rounds, visitors who don’t have a D.C. carry permit are still likely to face prosecution, regardless of what kind of magazine they’re using.
Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.
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