Trump's DC Takeover Won't Be a Success if Constitution is Ignored

“DC arrests surpass 1,000 as Trump-backed crackdown enters 12th homicide-free day,” Fox News reports. “U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said the people of Washington DC feel a lot safer under the crackdown.”

It is remarkable. After over 50 years of DC home rule, the nation’s capital has devolved into a violent, crime-ridden hellhole, primarily in (but by no means limited to) predictable areas. A no-nonsense approach to predation is not only needed but also demanded by the Constitution, with its preamble outlining the purpose of assigning it powers, in this case “to insure domestic tranquility [and] secure the Blessings of Liberty.” You can’t do either if mutts who’ve been lifelong generational social drains can carjack and murder you at will. Naturally, MAGA “law-and-order conservatives” are elated with these developments, and just as expectedly, Democrats are livid, fudging crime stats and quick to claim things are worse in other cities (ignoring those are also run by their party).

“D.C. Democrats Are Furious at Trump for Stopping All the Homicides,” The Federalist notes. And rather than welcome a drastic reduction in what they call “gun violence,” Moms Demand Action reposted a “tweet” by an anti-gun politician claiming, “Posting troops in cities, undermining community trust never makes sense and is nothing more than a stunt.”

Crime is down and the enemy is furious. What’s not to like? At the risk of infuriating MAGA loyalists, in a word, infringements.

“Dozens of ATF Agents Descend on DC Neighborhoods as Part of Trump Takeover,” The Reload reported. “Residents have already filmed ATF agents going door-to-door in DC neighborhoods as part of the operation.”

“We will continue to seize all illegal and unlicensed firearms, and to vigorously prosecute all crimes connected with them,” Donald Trump-appointed US Attorney Jeanine Pirro declared. “If anyone is carrying a weapon illegally, they will absolutely be charged.”

Okay, well they’re bad guys, right? They’re being stopped, aren’t’ they? What’s the problem? The issue is that while a “prohibited person” having a gun is a crime, it shouldn’t be, at least according to the Second Amendment and to the understanding the Founders had at the time it was ratified. There is no evidence from that period that citizens who were not in custody who had not been proven criminals, and convicts who had served their time and been released, were prohibited from owning guns. Ditto for teenagers, many of whom were militia members, and/or had enlisted in the Revolutionary War.

That, and there is no enumerated power in the Constitution delegating the authority to disarm them, in the absence of any other crime, to the executive or any branch of government. And that’s something some of us have been reminding whomever we can of for decades, speaking out against Project Exile, a federal program mandating tough penalties for felons caught in possession of a gun that had been enthusiastically promoted by the National Rifle Association. The program, when adopted by a state, also assisted federal prosecutors in enforcing unconstitutional federal gun laws by mandating that local prosecutors turn any state charges over to the ATF for review.

“We condemn any program that involves enforcing unconstitutional ‘laws’, even if such ‘laws’ are enforced only against violent criminals,” the Project Exile Condemnation Coalition, signed by,  Larry Pratt for Gun Owners of America, Aaron Zelman of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership,  and others (me included) declared almost 25 years ago. “Unconstitutional ‘laws’ are illegal, harmful to public safety, tyrannical, and are inevitably enforced against ordinary, non-criminal citizens.”

While President Trump has made some positive moves concerning the right to keep and bear arms in the nation’s capital, including streamlining the concealed carry permit process (bearing in mind that permits are also infringements) and “floated the idea of eliminating gun-free zones on the metro and forcing D.C. to reciprocate carry permits from other states,” the act of deploying ATF to carry out Pirro’s mandate to go after “unlicensed” firearms and charge anyone caught carrying without a permit once more proves out the Coalition’s predictive concerns.

As an aside, it’s particularly puzzling seeing how many MAGA-loving gun owners have embraced Judge Jeanine. They’re evidently unaware that, current “pro 2A” platitudes about it being a “natural right” aside, she has never renounced “launching” a County Gun Amnesty Buy Back Program “to get illegal and unwanted weapons off the streets” in 2000, and joining with New Yorkers Against Gun Violence in 2004 to demand "renewal and strengthening of the federal assault weapons ban."

Showing either personal growth or at least a self-serving understanding of what the administration wants her to say, Pirro recently announced her office “would not move forward with stand-alone charges for registered long guns” carried in public. “Criminal culpability is not determined by the instruments people employ but by the intent and conduct of the actor,” she declared, and that goes back to concerns that her office is doing just that.  After all, if an armed criminal is charged, it should be for the crimes he was committing with the gun.

As for just being a felon, Attorney General Pam Bondi is in the process of defining who is eligible for rights restoration, but so far, the official policy has not been released and my Freedom of Information Act request to determine eligibility criteria has passed the required-by-law response date with no answer (with a complaint pending). Presumably, the policy will not include those convicted of violent crimes, which opens the question of how, considering United States Sentencing Commission statistics for violent offenders (approximately 2/3 recidivate) they can logically and responsibly be considered “safe” enough to uncage when their sentences end.

It's undeniable, what Trump apologists say, that his administration has done more to advance the Second Amendment than any other administration would even talk about, let alone enact. The problem is, we seem to be in some kind of bipolar good action/bad action loop.

One day we see AG Bondi sending out an all-hands memo declaring, “For too long, the Second Amendment, which establishes the fundamental individual right of Americans to keep and bear arms, has been treated as a second-class right.” On another day, we see ATF declaring “Many people attempt to conceal firearms on their person or belongings which puts everyone involved at risk.” Then we see the government declare the end of “zero tolerance” for gun dealers with minor paperwork errors, followed shortly thereafter with an alert from GOA warning that DOJ is still fighting against efforts to “kill [it] in court, once and for all.”

“So, would you rather have Kamala Harris?” those sensitive to criticism about Donald Trump, but with no real argument to defend him on 2A backsliding will ask. No, of course not, and that’s not the point, it’s a distraction and an attempt to redirect without confronting what we, as gun owners, must. The point here is to get the failings and disconnects corrected, and we can’t do that if pointing them out is met with vindictive fury at the messenger instead of constructive plans to right the course.

One plan is to include representatives from various “gun rights” groups on AG Bondi’s Second Amendment Task Force, currently only comprised of government employees beholden to the feeding hand. Gun owners deserve seats at that table and their participation in analyzing and prioritizing bills, lawsuits, and regulations, in identifying opportunities and threats, and in advising on judicial and other federal nominees, would help the administration avoid actions that contradict its fine public promises. It would also mean that we’d get more than scraps swept from that table.

What’s a bad plan is to offer nothing other than excuses and unmerited praise, and to shout down anyone protesting various disappointments so that mistakes don’t get corrected and broken promises don’t get fixed. If the shared goal is to keep gun-grabbing Democrats from gaining power, where they will undo and reverse progress made to date in advancing the right to keep and bear arms, which plan do you think has a better chance of making positive gains?

Mr. Franklin once said something about people who give up essential liberty for temporary safety not deserving either. The president’s needed actions cleaning up the nation’s capital can’t be at the expense of any part of the right to arms and if gun owners don’t remind him of that they’ll all get what they deserve.

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