Federal prosecutors are now applying a new Justice Department policy that blocks felony charges for carrying shotguns or rifles in Washington, D.C., to both current and past cases, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, the city’s top prosecutor, announced last month that her office would no longer enforce a D.C. law that made it a crime to carry long guns outside homes or workplaces without permits. She said prosecutors will still pursue cases involving violent crimes with rifles or shotguns, and also charge people with felony convictions who are caught with these weapons.
This change shows how the Trump administration is loosening the District’s strict gun laws, a longtime goal of Second Amendment supporters. The policy comes as federal agents and National Guard troops are spread across the city to address what President Donald Trump has called a violent crime emergency. Between Aug. 7 and Aug. 26, D.C. police and federal officers seized 191 firearms, according to the mayor’s office.
The new policy not only stops new prosecutions under the law—which carried a maximum sentence of five years in prison—but also reduces penalties for past cases. That included a teenager who admitted he posed with an AR-15-style rifle on Instagram at age 18, after a record of armed carjacking, assault, and property destruction as a juvenile, court records show.
That teen, Tinsley Bowman, pleaded guilty last year in D.C. Superior Court to carrying a rifle outside his home or workplace. Police said he was seen in an Instagram Live video with a ski mask and a .22-caliber semiautomatic rifle. Officers later found the rifle in an oven at a Southeast Washington apartment during his arrest.
Bowman, now 19, was sentenced to six months in jail and one year of probation, set to end in January 2026. A judge called him back to court last month for missing probation check-ins, drug tests, and educational programs. But before penalties could be imposed, a prosecutor from Pirro’s office dismissed the case.
“It appears that the charge that the defendant was sentenced [for] in this case was carrying a rifle without a license,” prosecutor Rachel Bruce told the court on Aug. 21. “The government is no longer prosecuting or pursuing those types of charges. So … we would be asking to discharge the [probation violations], and to terminate probation.”
Judge Andrea Hertzfeld agreed and ended Bowman’s probation five months early. “Do you understand what’s happening right now, Mr. Bowman? … They want me to end your probation today. So, I see that big smile on your face, that’s what I’m going to do,” she said.
A spokesperson for the D.C. Superior Court said data was not available on how many defendants are serving sentences for carrying long guns. ATF reports show that from 2019 to 2023, authorities recovered 480 rifles and 238 shotguns in the District, while nearly 12,000 handguns were seized in the same period. Pirro has said handgun cases will still be prosecuted.
Bowman’s lawyer, Brandon M. Burrell, said the court move was unexpected: “I have never seen that before, especially for a firearm case. The government is typically quite aggressive in gun cases in D.C. … I didn’t expect to see it take effect in court so quickly.” He said his next step will be to ask the court to throw out Bowman’s conviction entirely.
Some former prosecutors said Bowman’s release was expected once the Justice Department changed its policy. Others argued it raises fairness concerns since new defendants would not face charges for the same crime.
Eric Tirschwell, executive director of Everytown for Gun Safety’s litigation group, said, “They say they are ridding D.C. of violent crime, and at the same time they’re giving early release to people convicted of gun crimes … that is the height of hypocrisy for this administration.”
Pirro said the change came from guidance issued by Solicitor General D. John Sauer, who argued that D.C.’s law conflicts with Supreme Court rulings, including District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), which struck down D.C.’s handgun ban, and N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), which overturned New York’s restrictions on firearm permits.
Tirschwell disagreed, saying Bruen emphasized that individuals historically could not “carry deadly weapons in a manner likely to terrorize others.” He added, “It seems pretty clear that individuals walking around Washington, D.C. with AR-15s would terrorize its residents.”
The White House said Trump’s crime task force is simplifying D.C. gun regulations and reducing wait times for firearm permits. Pirro’s office also recently said the Justice Department would stop defending the District’s ban on large-capacity magazines, calling the law inconsistent with the Second Amendment.
The D.C. attorney general, Brian Schwalb (D), has since taken over the case. At the federal level, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the same ban last year, and though the Supreme Court declined to review it, the case remains active and could return to court.
