Crime Crackdown in D.C. Shows Trump Administration’s Uneasy Relationship With Guns

The New York Times ^ | Sept. 1, 2025, 9:36 a.m. ET | Glenn Thrush

[E. Pluribus Unum]

If President Trump’s actions were intended to drive a law-and-order wedge between Democratic big-city leaders and their constituents, it has also exposed a division in his own coalition.

The Trump administration’s crackdown on crime in Washington has been propelled, in part, by an aggressive clampdown on guns, with city and federal officials confiscating around 150 weapons since the president declared a crime emergency in the capital nearly three weeks ago.

“I’m pleased to report another 105 arrests have been made and 12 illegal guns taken off the streets of Washington, DC,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on social media on Thursday. It was part of her near-daily tally of gun seizures, an effort spearheaded by Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

Under almost any other president, heralding a gun sweep would not be notable. But the shift toward gun enforcement — and publicizing the aggressive street sweeps — marks an abrupt departure for an administration that has courted Second Amendment maximalists and sharply downgraded federal firearms enforcement.

President Trump’s political appointees rolled back Biden-era regulations and diverted officials assigned to weapons cases to immigration raids. The White House has also proposed steep cuts to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and installed disengaged, inexperienced leaders to oversee its increasingly marginalized work force.

While these moves have not exposed major political divisions, they have caused some uneasiness among gun-rights supporters who are concerned that law-and-order officials like Ms. Pirro, who once supported restrictions on assault rifles, will create a chilling effect on legal gun owners in the district and in the surrounding area.

“It sends a message we don’t like,” said Luis Valdes, the Florida director of Gun Owners of America, an influential gun rights group that has pushed for the repeal of most federal gun_laws...

[E. Pluribus Unum]

DC has draconian gun laws that are just being enforced.

No one is above the law, after all.

[Steely Tom]

The New York Times has an uneasy relationship with reality.

[Semper Vigilantis]

Sounds like the NY Slimes don’t realize that there are LEGALLY OWNED GUNS and ILLEGAL GUNS. In fact, I don’t think The NY Slimes know that Legal and Illegal are opposites.

[silent majority rising]

We have a ‘thing’ about ILLEGAL guns, not legal guns. This cub Reporter is a dumb*ss.

[darth]

Most murders in this country are committed by felons.

A felon with a single round of ammo is subject to five years in federal prison.

Obama and Biden Maladministration both ignored this and let felons off without prosecuting.

I suspect that the gun crackdown is against felons and known criminals.

[vaskypilot]

Second amendment supports are fine with illegal guns being taken. The New York Times just likes to cause division.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Hey, NY Slimes?

I have absolutely NO PROBLEM with illegal guns taken from the cold, dead hands of working domestic criminal terrorists and loony-tunes trans killers! THIS is one of the things I voted for!

Leave the rest of us ALONE!

[Jonty30]

It has been ruled by the Supreme Court that criminals, until they complete their sentences, can be disarmed. What Trump is doing is perfectly Constitutional.

[marktwain]

The New York Times has an uneasy relationship with reality.

---

Exactly right. They love guns in the hands to their chosen authoritarians/totalitarians.

They hate guns in the hands of ordinary people.

[MrRelevant]

Lol …. Just like immigrants

[hanamizu]

OK, a stupid question here. What is an ‘illegal gun’? Is it a firearm possessed by someone barred by law from possessing a firearm? Is it a firearm that was obtained by illegal means—theft, straw purchase, etc.? Or a firearm whose whole type has been declared illegal such as a machine gun/glock switch?

In any case, I think the crackdown really involves people who are illegally in possession of a firearm. I seriously doubt that the firearms themselves have committed any crimes, though they may have been used by humans in the commission of crimes.

[C210N]

For DC safety and freedom, id like to see EVERY legal citizen, 100%, own and be well trained with firearms

[GrumpyOldGuy]

More distortions to the point of lies by the times. Gee, what a surprise.

[Sir Bangaz Cracka]

Causin, you know, it’s always them darn guns. Them guns just keep shootin folks. If there were no guns there would be no murders.

[BenLurkin]

"Crime Crackdown in D.C. Shows Trump Administration’s Uneasy Relationship With Guns"

[pfflier]

12 illegal guns taken off the streets of Washington, DC,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on social media

In DC, that's the equivalent of removing 12 grains of sand from a beach.

[rktman]

Gee, I wonder if they were registered? Fidiots!

[rfp1234]

NY Slimes has no clue about what the word ILLEGAL means.

[Inquiring Minds]

There is the problem that some folks would say “Then we will just make all guns illegal”.

So I wouldn’t like to lean too hard on that particular argument.

[Fledermaus]

The NYT must have a division of making crap up.