Minneapolis Tragedy Used to Justify Proposed Anti-Trans Firearm Ban
Senior Justice Department officials under President Donald Trump are exploring proposals to limit the right of transgender people to own firearms, as reported by CNN.
The internal discussions follow the recent Minneapolis church shooting, where two children were killed and 21 others injured, most of them parishioners. Police have identified the suspect as a 23-year-old transgender woman.
Rather than focusing on the broader issues of gun access or extremist violence, Trump allies and right-wing media quickly seized on the shooter’s gender identity to push for sweeping restrictions targeting an already marginalized group.
If enacted, the proposal would mark one of the most direct federal attacks on transgender rights to date, expanding the Trump administration’s ongoing campaign to erase transgender people from public life. Trump has already banned trans individuals from serving in the military, forced thousands of service members out of uniform, and ordered federal prisons to house inmates based on their sex assigned at birth instead of their lived gender.
Trump’s interest in restricting gun access to transgender Americans comes even as he continues to champion unrestricted access to firearms for the rest of the population. Earlier this year, he ordered the Justice Department to review and dismantle any regulations that could hinder gun ownership.
The Justice Department has not confirmed whether a formal proposal will be introduced. On social media, Alejandra Caraballo, Clinical Instructor, Harvard Law Cyberlaw Clinic, said in a post on Bluesky, “ The Trump administration is moving to strip trans people of their 2nd amendment rights. Nothing good ever comes out of an authoritarian regime stripping a minority group of owning guns.”
