DOJ Officials Brainstorming Ways to Restrict Access to Firearms for Trans-Identifying People
Officials inside the U.S. Department of Justice have convened several internal meetings about how to limit access to firearms for people who identify as transgender, according to multiple sources. But any policy formulated from these meetings would raise multiple concerns.
The meetings, first reported by the Daily Wire, have now been confirmed by more than half a dozen news outlets across the political spectrum. “Individuals within the DOJ are reviewing ways to ensure that mentally ill individuals suffering from gender dysphoria are unable to obtain firearms while they are unstable and unwell,” a DOJ spokesperson confirmed to Fox News, but “no specific criminal justice proposals have been advanced at this time.”
The meetings follow a mass shooting by a transgender-identified man at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. That tragedy adds to a string of high-profile mass shootings by mentally troubled, transgender-identifying people. Mass shootings by transgender-identified perpetrators are infrequent but disproportionately high.
Current federal law does not prevent all people with a mental illness from owning a firearm. However, the current Firearms Transaction Record (ATF Form 4473) does ask prospective gun purchasers, “Have you ever been adjudicated as a mental defective OR have you ever been committed to a mental institution?”
For some DOJ officials, the move is instinctual. “Democrats have called for common sense gun laws for a long time,” one DOJ source blabbed. “This seems pretty common sense to me.” Some righ-twing activists have also encouraged the move. Last week, Charlie Kirk posted on X, “If you are crazy enough to want to hormonally and surgically ‘change your sex,’ you have a mental disorder, and you are too crazy to own a firearm.”
Naturally, the news has drawn criticism too. “This precedent being used against trans people could be used against veterans with PTSD. It’s a slippery slope to make anyone lose their 2nd amendment rights,” complained Alejandra Caraballo, a prominent trans activist with a post at Harvard Law School. Human Rights Campaign Communications Director Laurel Powell made a similar point, “The Constitution isn’t a privilege reserved for the few; it guarantees basic rights to all. Transgender people … deserve the full protection of our nation’s laws, not anti-American nonsense from the White House.”
DOJ officials should beware playing into the narrative of transgender activists. By noodling a way to deprive people who identify as transgender — and only them — of the ability to keep firearms, the Justice Department leaves itself open to charges of discrimination. Not every transgender-identified person is a potential mass shooter, and activist lawyers would quickly enlist a sympathetic case. Activist lawyers may cite even these preliminary discussions as evidence of discriminatory intent in unrelated cases.
A second concern is the constitutional issues at play. Far more than other cultural flashpoints, firearms possession is explicitly protected under the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Left-wing lawyers could easily argue that any policy preventing transgender-identifying Americans from owning firearms violates this constitutional right, not to mention the equal protection under the law guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.
Third, even if the DOJ set aside the merits of the inevitable legal challenges that would result, it is questionable whether any policy designed to keep transgender-identified people from possessing firearms would even accomplish its intended effect — namely, to prevent mass shootings, particularly school shootings. The argument here is identical to the argument against all gun control. Somehow, criminals who want to have guns still manage to get guns, even if they have to do it illegally. After all, if they plan to kill people, why would they care about breaking a law to obtain a deadly weapon?
The fourth problem is arguably the thorniest for any policy the DOJ might devise: how would the class of affected individuals be defined? The category is nebulous, with some people identifying as transgender (or “gender-diverse”) yet making minimal efforts to modify their body, dress, or behavior. The category can also be unstable with some people changing their gender identity based on how they feel on a given day. Thus, it’s difficult to precisely define the class at all — either for activist lawyers seeking to win judicial protections, or activist executive officials seeking to impose exclusionary policies.
It’s likely that some participants in the DOJ meetings wisely recognized at least some of these same concerns. On nearly every issue, the second Trump administration has acted rapidly, even to a fault. Yet here, after several meetings, the DOJ only states that “no specific criminal justice proposals have been advanced at this time.”
Time will tell whether it stays that way. But for now, it seems like a prudent choice for the DOJ to hold meetings on the topic before rushing out an ill-conceived policy. “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety (Proverbs 11:14).
AUTHOR
Joshua Arnold
Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.
RELATED ARTICLE: A History of Trans Mass Murderers
EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
