Justice Department talks about banning transgender gun owners spark fury
across political spectrum
[September 06, 2025]
By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is drawing swift condemnation
from gun rights groups and LGBTQ advocates alike after floating that it
was considering restricting transgender people from owning guns — a move
that would all but certainly face immediate constitutional challenges if
ever implemented.
The discussions come in the wake of the shooting at a Minneapolis
Catholic school last month that federal officials have said was carried
out by a transgender shooter, according to a person familiar with the
matter. The person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss
internal deliberations, cautioned that the talks were in the early
stages and that no proposal has been finalized.
Even so, that high-level officials in the Trump administration were
discussing such an idea sparked fury across the political spectrum.
LGBTQ advocates called it misguided and dangerous as the vast majority
of mass shootings in the U.S. are carried out by men and do not involve
transgender people.
“Transgender people are less than 2% of the overall population, yet four
times as likely to be victims of crime,” GLAAD said in an email.
“Everyone deserves to be themselves, be safe, and be free from violence
and discrimination. We all deserve leaders who prioritize keeping all of
us safe and free.”
Since Trump returned to office, his administration has targeted
transgender people in several ways, including removing them from
military service, scrubbing some federal websites of mentions of them,
trying to bar changing the sex marker on passports, seeking personal
information on gender-affirming care patients from doctors and clinics,
and seeking to bar transgender girls and women from certain sports
competitions.
The Justice Department said in a statement in response to questions
about the firearms talks that the agency is “actively evaluating options
to prevent the pattern of violence we have seen from individuals with
specific mental health challenges and substance abuse disorders.” But,
the department said: “No specific criminal justice proposals have been
advanced at this time.”
Some conservative figures have coalesced around the idea of restricting
guns for people diagnosed with gender dysphoria — the unease a person
may have because their assigned gender and gender identity don’t match —
through a federal law that bars people from possessing firearms if they
are “adjudicated as a mental defective.”
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Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks during a human smuggling news
conference Thursday Sept. 4, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris
O'Meara)
“It's incredibly worrying that that seems to be on the table for
them,” Alejandra Caraballo, a transgender rights activist and
Harvard Law School instructor. “This is not something that would be
that incredibly difficult to do logistically or practically but it
would be politically explosive in terms of the backlash of Second
Amendment groups.”
Guns rights advocates — including politically powerful groups such
as the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America — vowed
to fight any proposal that imposes a blanket gun ban targeting a
segment of the population.
“The Second Amendment isn’t up for debate,” the NRA said in a social
media post on Friday. “NRA does not, and will not, support any
policy proposals that implement sweeping guns bans that arbitrarily
strip law-abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights without
due process.”
Another gun rights group, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep
and Bear Arms, called the discussions “disturbing.”
“Prohibiting whole groups of people from owning and using firearms
because a sick individual misused a gun to harm and kill children is
as reprehensible as restricting the rights of all law-abiding
citizens because some people have committed crimes,” said Alan
Gottlieb, the group's chairman said in a statement. “That anyone in
the Trump administration would consider such nonsense is alarming.”
____
Associated Press reporter Geoff Mulvihill in Philadelphia
contributed.
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