Jeanine Pirro is desperately backpedaling on her threats to take away citizens’ guns after facing outrage from her own party.
Pirro, appointed by Donald Trump as Washington D.C.’s top prosecutor last year, attempted to walk back incendiary remarks in which she said, “you bring a gun into the District, you’re going to jail.”
“Some people are concerned about something I said yesterday, so I want to be crystal clear: I am a proud supporter of the Second Amendment,” Pirro, 74, said in a video shared to X on Tuesday,
“I have guns myself: long guns, handguns, and I’m a proud, high-heeled gun owner.”
The former TV judge and Fox News host added that she had previously been a keynote speaker at an NRA convention before pivoting to stress the “responsibility” of being a gun owner, which involves “understanding the laws and registration requirements.”
“President Trump’s goal here, and my goal as well, is to make sure we take guns out of the hands of criminals,” Pirro continued. “We’re taking guns off the street, illegal guns, in the hands of criminals, who want to use those guns to victimize law-abiding citizens.”
“You’re responsible, you follow the laws, you’re not gonna have a problem with me,” she concluded.
Pirro had also shared an earlier post on X in which she stressed her support of the Second Amendment, but it appears both her efforts were in vain.
Replying to her video post, the National Association for Gun Rights said, “You are making this worse.”
Republicans across the board sprang forth to condemn Pirro’s anti-gun rights remarks, from libertarian champion of the Epstein files Rep. Thomas Massie to MAGA-loving Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“The District of Columbia has been ‘shall issue’ since 2017 when the requirement that you must have a ‘good reason’ to carry a handgun was struck down,” Massie, the Trump administration’s latest congressional harassment target, said on X. “Non-residents can obtain a permit in DC — don’t ask me how I know."
DeSantis also slammed Pirro’s comments, saying, “Second Amendment rights are not extinguished just because an American visits DC. American gun owners who conceal carry are among the most law-abiding citizens in the nation. They are friends of law enforcement; they should not be targeted by law enforcement.”
Even some Democrats got in the mix, with Rep. Brendan Boyle saying he was “Old enough to remember the ‘Obama is going to grab your guns’ hysteria. Turns out it was the Trump White House.”
Pirro’s inflammatory remarks come only nine days after federal Border Patrol agents shot and killed VA ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, a legal gun owner who was carrying a concealed firearm that was disarmed when he was killed.
Trump and other administration officials argued that Pretti’s firearm justified his killing, but gun rights organizations, including the National Rifle Association, disputed their claims on the basis of the Second Amendment.
“The NRA unequivocally believes that all law-abiding citizens have a right to keep and bear arms anywhere that they have a legal right to be,” the group said in a statement shared on X.
