Federal prosecutors in D.C. have been instructed not to seek felony charges against people who are carrying rifles or shotguns in the nation’s capital, regardless of the strength of the evidence, according to U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and an email reviewed by The Washington Post.
The new policy, which Pirro said was crafted by the Justice Department and its solicitor general, marks a break with past practice. 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 shift comes at an unexpected time — just as the Trump administration ramps up federal law enforcement to unprecedented levels on the streets of D.C. in a bid to decrease crime rates — and complicates the White House’s boasts of seizing dozens of guns as part of President Donald Trump’s surge. The White House said the enhanced law enforcement teams had seized 68 firearms as of Tuesday morning.
Pirro, an ally of Trump who was confirmed as D.C.’s top federal prosecutor this month, said her office would continue charging crimes of violence or firearms trafficking that involved shotguns or rifles. There is no indication that D.C. prosecutors plan to stop charging people found to be illegally possessing handguns, which account for the bulk of firearms offenses in the District.
In a statement to The Post, Pirro said Tuesday night that D.C.’s blanket prohibition on carrying shotguns or rifles “is clearly a violation of the Supreme Court’s holdings” in two landmark cases expanding the right to bear arms: District of Columbia v. Heller from 2008 and N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen from 2022.
The Supreme Court held in the first case that individuals may possess firearms in their homes for purposes such as self-defense, invalidating a handgun ban that the District had in place at the time. In the Bruen case, the justices said any gun-control regulations that are not rooted in U.S. historical tradition should be struck down by lower courts.
“Without question, President Donald Trump and I are committed to prosecuting gun crime,” Pirro said in the statement. “This unprecedented number of gun case prosecutions in both federal and local court is only done consistent with the constitution and the laws of the land.”
Regarding the new policy, Pirro added: “Nothing in this memo from the Department of Justice and the Office of Solicitor General precludes the United States Attorney’s Office from charging a felon with the possession of a firearm, which includes a rifle, shotgun, and attendant large capacity magazine pursuant to DC Code 22-4503. What it does preclude is a separate charge of possession of a registered rifle or shotgun.”
The U.S. attorney’s office in D.C. is the only one in the country that prosecutes local street crimes in addition to federal cases. D.C. law makes it a crime for people to carry rifles or shotguns outside their homes or places of business without permits, which are rarely granted. The District does not have reciprocity laws that allow people to carry firearms with permits from other jurisdictions, a frequent point of contention for Second Amendment rights groups. First-time offenders can be fined and imprisoned up to five years if convicted.
The D.C. attorney general’s office has limited jurisdiction over local crime, with the power to prosecute juvenile offenses and certain adult misdemeanors, but not firearms-related felonies.
Authorities recovered 98 rifles and 38 shotguns in the District in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available, along with 2,842 pistols and revolvers, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Not all firearms in the data were used in crimes, the ATF said.
Trump declared a crime emergency in D.C. this month and has deployed a surge of federal law enforcement agents across the city, lamenting in an executive order Aug. 11 that the “rising violence in the capital now urgently endangers public servants, citizens, and tourists.” Pirro, a former Fox News personality who previously served as a judge and prosecutor in Westchester County, New York, has praised Trump’s actions as long overdue. Violent crime in D.C. is the lowest it’s been in 30 years, according to D.C. police data, though Trump and Pirro say it remains unacceptably high.
The White House said last week that Trump’s task force on D.C. crime was cutting down the city’s firearms regulations, which are seen as some of the strictest in the country. A White House spokesperson told Fox News that Trump’s task force had “successfully reduced the average permit processing time from several months to just five days” and that the D.C. police had begun taking next-day and walk-in appointments to register firearms.
Pirro, at a news conference last week, pointed to photos of dozens of D.C. teens who had been killed by gunfire since last year and said she would be working to get illegal guns off the streets. “I guarantee you that every one of these shootings was with an illegal gun. All right?” Pirro said. “And I guarantee you that every one of these individuals was shot and killed by someone who felt that they were never going to be caught. And I want to send a message that we are going to catch you.”
Perhaps the most notorious case in which the D.C. law on rifles and shotguns has been used to charge a crime in recent years involves the shooting at the Comet Ping Pong restaurant in 2016. The shooter, Edgar Maddison Welch, subscribed to a baseless online conspiracy theory that a child sex-trafficking ring was operating at the establishment — what was dubbed the “Pizzagate” conspiracy.
“He was carrying the AR-15 openly, with one hand on the pistol grip, and the other hand on the hand guard around the barrel, such that anyone with an unobstructed view could see the gun,” prosecutors said in 2017, when Welch was sentenced to four years in prison. “The customers and employees fled the building. At one point, Welch encountered a locked room and attempted to force open the door, first using a butter knife and then discharging his assault rifle multiple times into the door.”
No one was injured in the shooting. Welch was also convicted of other offenses, in addition to carrying a rifle. He died this year in a police shooting that began with a traffic stop in North Carolina.
