05-03-2025
10 things to know about POTUS push to curb gun rights in D.C.
HONOLULU (KHON2) — One of the most intense debates to characterize the United States for the last 26 years is regarding guns rights.
And while President George W. Bush's two terms and the first presidential term of Donald Trump was characterized with holding true to the Republican push to expand how the Second Amendment is interpreted, the second presidential term for Trump is taking a decidedly different position.
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According to the Washington Post, POTUS is marking certain people for prosecution. Here's what we know so far.
The interim United States Attorney General, Ed Martin, has launched a new initiative called 'Make D.C. Safe Again'. It's an initiative that involves federal prosecutors moving to focus heavily on all firearms cases in the city. According to Martin, it's meant to make the city safer, abandoning the 'guns don't kill people; people kill people' boilerplate response to gun violence.
Denise Cheung, who served as the chief of the Criminal Division in the office of the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., resigned after saying she was pressured to launch a criminal investigation and to freeze assets related to a grant awarded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during President Biden's tenure. She claims there was no evidence of a crime.
The current prosecutor for the Justice Department's Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section, Jonathan Hornok intends to step in to replace Denise Cheung as the chief of the office's Criminal to sources, federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., have been ordered to pursue every firearms case referred to them. These prosecutors were also instructed to seek pretrial detention against every person charged with such an offense.
A memo from Ed Martin provides instructions to prosecutors that explains who, how and what to seek in pretrial detention cases for every person charged with a firearms offense. This move is meant to be applied to everyone regardless of what the circumstances are.
The memo stated that if a magistrate judge denies a request for pretrial detention in a firearms case, then the prosecutor is required to appeal that decision.
Ed Martin's memo stated, 'We will flood the federal district court with cases to make our City safe'. This is a reference to the new initiative's focus on increasing the number of firearms cases in court.
There are about a dozen agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) who have been reassigned to support the 'Make D.C. Safe Again' initiative.
Last week, Ed Martin demoted more than half a dozen senior leaders in his office who were in charge of prosecutions related to fraud, public corruption, civil rights, firearms, narcotics trafficking and child exploitation.
New interim U.S. Attorneys are expected to be appointed. Amongst them include Kelly Hayes who was named Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland.
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With the Republican Party working diligently to ensure the unfettered expansion of Second Amendment interpretations, it's going to be interesting to see how all this plays out over the coming year.
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