The balance of the scales of justice swung wildly towards authoritarianism when another Trump DOJ appointee made an anti-gun statement, and perhaps one of the most unconstitutional remarks ever uttered about the Second Amendment from a Republican administration.
On Monday, February 2, Trump appointee Jeanine Pirro, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, made the following remarks on Fox News show “The Story with Martha MacCallum”:
[If] you bring a gun into the District, you mark my words, you’re going to jail. I don’t care if you have a license in another district and I don’t care if you’re a law-abiding gun owner somewhere else. You bring a gun into this District, count on going to jail, and hope you get the gun back!
Jared Yanis, a well-respected Second Amendment advocate and former law enforcement officer, made the following response statement in a February 3 YouTube video:
In the same breath that they claim to defend the Second Amendment, they’re endorsing enforcement positions that would criminalize responsible gun owners for lawful conduct. That’s not balance. That’s betrayal.
The statement by Pirro is just another in a series of high-level anti-gun statements by the current administration, including by President Trump himself when on January 27 he stated, “I don’t like that he had two fully-loaded magazines. That’s a lot of bad stuff,” in response to a reporter asking about Alex Pretti. Pretti’s possession of the firearm and magazines were not unlawful.
One day prior to that, both DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel made unprecedented statements blatantly misinterpreting firearms law and characterizing gun owners in a negative light.
Despite President Trump signing a February 2025 executive order to protect the Second Amendment, and assertions that Pam Bondi, head of the Justice Department, is the “most pro-2A AG in US history,” the Trump Justice Department – with the singular exception of the Second Amendment Section, under AAG Harmeet Dhillon – continues to chalk up a shockingly anti-Second Amendment track record, which we have documented extensively.
Pirro’s recent statement undermines both the spirit of the February 2025 executive order as well as the basic premise of the U.S. Constitution, which is shocking given her career in law enforcement and as a judge.
Instead of championing law-abiding gun owners by pushing for national reciprocity, Pirro’s predatory statements show that the Trump DOJ is looking to aggressively prosecute those who carry firearms under restrictions nowhere found in the Constitution. Rather than broaden protections for expressing Second Amendment rights, she advocates for disarming those who cross state lines.
Some of President Trump’s highest-level appointees have historically held staunchly anti-2A views. Pam Bondi was a strong proponent of red flag laws, opposed open carry, and opposed adults under 21 owning firearms when she served as Attorney General of Florida. Jeanine Pirro has opposed the right to own popular semi-automatic rifles, and lobbied to extend the federal ban on so-called “assault weapons,” stating, “I believe in the Second Amendment strongly, but there is no legitimate purpose in possessing an ‘assault weapon’ other than to kill as many people as quickly as possible.” That statement alone castigates tens of millions of law-abiding gun owners.
Washington, D.C. has complex gun control laws and a long list of prohibited locations – and similar ones which are being struck down in other jurisdictions. D.C. operates as a shall-issue jurisdiction that prohibits open carry, but allows concealed carry for both residents and non-residents under a licensing scheme (its subjective requirements were struck down after the Bruen Supreme Court decision). In December of 2025, the DOJ’s Second Amendment Section sued D.C. over its unconstitutional ban on AR-15s.
Pirro was announced as an interim appointment for the position of U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia on May 8, 2025, and later nominated for the full, permanent position, which the Senate confirmed on August 2, 2025, in a 50-45 party-line vote.
