Jeanine Pirro just opted out of making sense. On Fox News on Tuesday, she issued an absolute threat against people bringing guns into Washington D.C. Hours later, she tried to walk it back, but without retracting a word.
On Feb. 3, Jeanine Pirro, the Attorney General for Washington, D.C., appeared on Fox News to celebrate what she described as a historic drop in violent crime in the District. She credited an “enhanced federal partnership,” a tougher prosecutorial posture, and a focus on removing guns from the streets. According to Pirro, the District now has the “fewest recorded homicides in history,” following thousands of arrests and the seizure of nearly a thousand firearms.
The setup was already flawed, but she topped it off with an even inflaming rhetoric.“You bring a gun into the district, you mark my words, you’re going to jail,” Pirro said. “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.” Yes, she said that and she said that with utmost confidence.
There were also no qualifiers in her statement. She made no references to unlawful possession, and no mention of D.C.’s licensing requirements. The warning was categorical: bring a gun into Washington, D.C., and you will be jailed. License or not, law-abiding or not. If you’re thinking that goes completely against the Second Amendment, you’re not mistaken. And Pirro realized it soon enough, too.
Pirro clarified her stance later on X, but it only exposed the hypocrite in her
After clips of her statement began circulating widely, Pirro posted a clarification on X the same day. “Let me be clear,” she wrote. “I am a proud supporter of the Second Amendment.” She explained that D.C. law requires handguns to be licensed with the Metropolitan Police Department to be carried into the District. She also added that her office is focused on individuals who are unlawfully carrying guns.
The problem isn’t that the second statement exists. It’s that the first one does. And the second statement does not clarify her previous one even remotely. Because on Fox News, Pirro did not say “unlawfully.” She did not say “without a D.C. license.” She explicitly dismissed licenses from other jurisdictions and explicitly included “law-abiding gun owners somewhere else.” The threat was not framed as legal enforcement. It was framed as deterrence by absolutism.
Logically, her two positions cannot both be true in the way she presented them. If Pirro’s intent was to describe enforcement of D.C.’s licensing regime, her television warning was wildly overbroad. If her intent was to send a blunt message to discourage firearms from entering the city, her X post reframes that message to sound constitutionally careful. That’s not clarification, it’s damage control.
An Attorney threatening jail for exercising their Second Amendment rights is not lightweight
The contradiction matters because Pirro isn’t a pundit riffing, she is the District’s top prosecutor. When she says “you’re going to jail,” people are entitled to take her literally. When she says she doesn’t care if you’re law-abiding elsewhere, that signals a zero-tolerance posturing. So, supporting the Second Amendment, in theory, does not coexist comfortably with the blanket threats she gave on television.
If the policy is “D.C. has its own licensing rules,” say that. If the policy is “any gun in the District is grounds for arrest,” own that instead. But Pirro wants credit for both positions. She wants to be the hard-line enforcer who scares guns out of the city. And, at the same time, she wants to portray herself as the constitutional loyalist who respects gun rights. But you don’t get to threaten first and footnote later.
Published: Feb 3, 2026 03:29 pm