Trump administration ‘considering banning trans people from owning guns’

Senior Department of Justice (DoJ) officials are reportedly proposing limits on trans people’s Second Amendment right to buy or own guns.

Earlier this month, reports suggested that the DoJ was planning to prevent trans people from buying firearms, in the wake of a mass shooting at a school church in Minneapolis, which left two children dead and 21 other people injured.

Robin Westman killed eight-year-old Fletcher Merkal, and Harper Moyski, 10, after firing 116 rifle rounds through the windows of the church at the Annunciation Catholic School on 27 August, before turning the gun on himself.

Two sources have told CNN that DoJ officials were discussing how to expand president’s Donald Trump’s ban on trans people serving in the US military to declare that transgender men and women were “mentally ill” and, therefore, did not enjoy Second Amendment rights.

One senior justice department official pointed out that the tactic probably wouldn’t work because millions of Americans with mental-health issues have the right to own guns.

The suggested ban is unprecedented, given Republicans’ long history of supporting the right to bear arms. Nonetheless, Harvard Law School clinical instructor and civil rights lawyer Alejandra Caraballo urged people to take the threat seriously, saying the “precedent being used against trans people could be used against veterans” with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“It’s a slippery slope to make anyone lose their Second Amendment rights,” she added.

‘Trans people being used as scapegoats’

Human rights groups have branded the move as a way to “scapegoat” trans people rather than address the epidemic of gun violence in the US. A spokesperson for GLAAD said that, instead of looking for “actual solutions,” the administration had chosen to “target a small and vulnerable population”.

Trans people make up less than two per cent of the US population but are four times more likely to be a victim of a crime, the spokesperson went on to say.

Claims that trans people are to blame for most of the gun violence have been spread by right-wing conspiracy theorists, pundits and politicians in the wake of the shooting of conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk.

Alleged shooter Tyler Robinson, who is not publicly trans, has been charged with aggravated murder and could face the death penalty if convicted. Vice-president JD Vance blamed “left-wing extremism” for Kirk’s death, despite suspect’s political leanings still not being clear.

According to research, of the 3,708 mass shooting incidents in the US since 2015, only an estimated 16 were committed by out trans people, and a report in 2021 showed that most domestic extremist murders were committed by people with right-wing leanings.

Responding to the reported plans to restrict trans people’s right to own firearms, a spokesperson for the powerful right-wing National Rifle Association (NRA) said “all law-abiding Americans” had the right to purchase, possess and use firearms.

“The NRA does not, and will not, support any policy proposals that implement sweeping gun bans that arbitrarily strip law-abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights without due process,” they said.

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