In a bold move to clean up the nation’s capital and uphold the Second Amendment, President Donald J. Trump signed a new executive order on Friday titled “Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful.” But buried in the sweeping directive was a major win for gun owners: a direct challenge to D.C.’s notoriously slow and costly concealed carry permit system.

The executive order creates the “D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force,” a multi-agency group charged with everything from cleaning up graffiti to cracking down on crime. But one key mission stands out for supporters of the right to bear arms: helping the D.C. government speed up the processing and reduce the cost of concealed carry licenses for law-abiding citizens.

“D.C. belongs to every American,” Trump said in a statement. “America’s capital must be a place in which residents, commuters, and tourists feel safe at all hours…”

A Broken System Finally Under the Microscope

Right now, D.C.’s permit process is a bureaucratic nightmare. Applicants must make an appointment just to apply, and those appointments are booked out for months. One recent attempt to schedule an appointment landed the first available slot a staggering seven months out.

Add to that a $13 application fee, a $35 fingerprinting fee, a $75 license fee—and you still haven’t paid for the mandatory training class, which often runs hundreds more. All told it’s a price tag and wait time that effectively discourages many residents from exercising their Second Amendment rights.

Critics have long accused the District of using red tape as a backdoor gun ban. But now, the Trump administration is putting local officials on notice.

According to the order, the federal Task Force will “collaborate with appropriate local government entities to provide assistance to increase the speed and lower the cost of processing concealed carry license requests.”

While the exact mechanism remains to be seen, options could include directing federal personnel to assist the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department’s Firearms Registration Section, funding additional staff, or putting pressure on city leadership to end the delays.

A New Era of Federal Accountability

This order is part of a growing campaign by the Trump administration to enforce the Supreme Court’s landmark Bruen decision. The decision struck down “may-issue” permitting systems and warned against permit regimes that are slow, expensive, or overly burdensome.

On Thursday, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced a DOJ civil rights investigation into the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for its own lengthy delays and sky-high permit fees. And in a clear warning shot, Bondi promised more investigations would follow in “any other states or localities that insist on unduly burdening, or effectively denying, the Second Amendment rights of their ordinary, law-abiding citizens.”

In contrast to the Biden-era White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention—which aimed to restrict firearms and is now under congressional investigation—the Trump administration is taking the opposite approach: protect lawful gun owners, enforce existing laws, and eliminate unconstitutional local practices.

What Happens Next?

The executive order does not set a timeline for the D.C. Task Force to report results, but many see this as the beginning of a broader Second Amendment enforcement wave.

For gun owners who’ve long been frustrated by D.C.’s anti-gun stance, this could mark a real shift. If the task force lives up to its mission, we could soon see faster permits, lower costs, and more people legally carrying in the capital—just as the Constitution guarantees.

As one Virginia gun owner put it: “It shouldn’t take seven months and hundreds of dollars to exercise a God-given right.”

President Trump’s executive order sends a clear message: Washington, D.C. is America’s city, and that means every American’s rights count here—especially the right to bear arms.

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