Trump Expresses Support for Concealed Carry in Washington, D.C.

President Donald Trump has long championed the right to carry, and he reiterated that support on Friday when he was asked a question about bearing arms in Washington D.C.

The question was posed during a gaggle with reporters in the Oval Office, and despite the clunky premise of the question, the president made it clear where he stands. 

Trump on expanding concealed carry to Washington DC: “I’m a second amendment person. People have to be able to protect themselves.” pic.twitter.com/BSurzKGC94

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) August 22, 2025

Reporter: Are you open to expanding the national concealed carry to apply to D.C. like it does to other states like Texas? 

Trump: Well, they have it some states, so they feel strongly about it. I, as you know, I’m in favor of it. People have to protect themselves. I’m a Second Amendment person, very simply. People have to be able to protect themselves. Especially like in Washington, you walk down the street and a guy comes up and slugs you and he’s got a pistol in his hand; you can be tough, you can be in great shape, you can be a powerful person, or you can be a guy that weighs 100 pounds with a gun in your hand. I’ll bet on the guy with the gun 100% of the time, right? So, you need protection.

I’m not all that familiar with the White House press corps, so I don’t know who asked that question to Donald Trump, but contrary to his query there is no national concealed carry law. And despite the president wearing a hat that read “Donald Trump Was Right About Everything”, the president also made a minor error when he said that “some states” have a right to carry law on the books. 

Concealed carry laws are in place in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, though some of them continue to make it extraordinarily difficult to exercise our right to bear arms. The Trump administration, though, is helping to fix that. A task force set up earlier this year in D.C. claims to have reduced wait times for carry permits from four months to four days, and the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division is currently investigating Los Angeles over its months-long delays in accepting and processing applications. 

So, “expanding” the right to carry to D.C. has already happened. Local lawmakers in the District approved a “shall issue” law back in 2017, after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the District’s “good cause” requirement violated the Second Amendment. Rather than appeal to the Supreme Court and risk a decision that would impact every jurisdiction in the nation, D.C. (like Illinois) took the loss at the appellate court level and adopted a “shall issue” law, albeit one with onerous requirements. It would take another five years for the Supreme Court to get ahold of a challenge to a “may issue” law, eventually striking down New York’s “good cause” requirement three years ago in the Bruen decision. 

My guess is that the reporter was trying to ask if out-of-state licenses, like those issued in Texas, should be recognized in Washington, D.C., which is not currently the case. In order to lawfully bear arms in the District, you have to have a carry permit issued by the Metropolitan Police Department, and they only way to obtain one is to take a D.C.-approved training course, which includes 16 hours of instruction and 2 hours of range time. 

Though the courses are relatively easy to find in D.C. suburbs, it’s impossible to meet the requirements without leaving Washington, D.C. because there are no publicly accessible ranges in our nation’s capital. Outside of northern Virginia or southern Maryland, though, you’d be hard-pressed to find firearms instructors who are teaching the D.C. carry course, which makes it extraordinarily difficult for visitors to D.C. to lawfully exercise their Second Amendment rights. 

I don’t want to put words in the president’s mouth, and I really wish the reporter had been more articulate and accurate in his question, but my guess is that Donald Trump doesn’t have any issue with D.C recognizing valid carry licenses issued by the 50 states, given that he’s long supported a national right-to-carry reciprocity law. 

“Your Second Amendment doesn’t end at the state line,” Trump said in 2023, and he was absolutely correct. Unfortunately, unless Congress claws back its lawmaking authority over the District it will be up to the D.C. City Council to approve any reciprocity language, and that’s not likely to happen unless they’re trying to keep another case away from the Supreme Court. 

Editor’s Note: President Trump and pro-2A Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.

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