The right to keep and bear arms is guaranteed under the Second Amendment and applies to all Americans, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender. However, the Trump administration might look to change that. Last month, the mass shooting at the Annunciation Catholic Church in Minnesota, which left two children dead and 17 wounded, was allegedly committed by a transgender individual. In response, the Department of Justice (DOJ) was reported to have been "reviewing ways to ensure that mentally ill individuals suffering from gender dysphoria are unable to obtain firearms while they are unstable and unwell." In other words, the DOJ is looking to ban transgender people from owning firearms. While there is no formal rule or a statement from the DOJ, the Right-leaning Daily Wire broke the story last week.
Let us begin by asking whether the DOJ has a policy basis for such a proposal. The question to answer is whether the DOJ's theory that transgender people are mentally unstable enough to take away their Second Amendment rights is warranted. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) classifies gender dysphoria as a medical condition. It is true that transgender people have high levels of suicidal ideation and mental health diagnoses. However, there are three major counterarguments that refute the DOJ's premise that banning transgender people from owning firearms would help with public safety.
First of all, as I explained in 2017 in response to the Las Vegas mass shooting, mental illness is a poor predictor of violent behavior. The think tank RAND Corporation showed an absence of evidence when it came to the effects of firearm prohibitions related to mental illness on mass shootings. The only outcome with impact was violent crime generally, and even that was with limited evidence. More to the point, RAND pointed out that 2 to 4 percent of all violent behavior may be attributable to mental illness. The American Association of Medical Colleges found that less than 5 percent of mass shooters had a psychiatric diagnosis that resulted in a gun-disqualifying adjudication.
The second counterargument that I have made before is that in spite of being frequently covered in the media, mass shootings are statistically rare, as research from the Cato Institute details. The Cato Institute defines a mass shooting as "an indiscriminate rampage with a firearm in a public place or place of business that results in at least three victims killed by the attacker." With this definition, there have been 298 shooters responsible for 1,733 murders and 2,459 people injured between 1966 and 2024. In total, the murder victims of mass shooters account for about 0.15 percent of all homicides since 1966. The probability of being murdered in a mass shooting is 1 in 9.1 million per year, whereas being injured in a mass shooting is 1 in 6.4 million. For context, the probability of being struck by lightning is 1 in 1.6 million, which is to say that an American is about six times more likely to be struck by lightning than shot in a mass shooting.
Third, if having a mental disorder were the only factor in whether someone commits a mass shooting, we would see that arise in mass shooter demographic data. Transgender people do not pose a special or disproportionate threat, especially since 75 percent of transgender people do not report frequent mental distress. If anything, the data shows the opposite. The Gun Violence Archive data shows that 0.17 percent of mass shooters from 2018 to 2025 were transgender. Considering that 0.8 percent of Americans are transgender, this would mean that transgender people are almost five times less likely to commit a mass murder than the average American.
It was not simply LGBTQ Nation that was angry about this possible ban. That anger does not surprise me because LGBT organizations tend to lean Left and have been anti-Trump. What was surprising is that none of the pro-Second Amendment rights groups were happy, whether it was the National Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America, or the Firearms Policy Coalition.
It makes sense why that would be the reaction. Since there is no public health threat, there would be no justification to impose a blanket prohibition on transgender people's Second Amendment rights. The DOJ's line of thinking is even worse considering that a quarter of all Americans will qualify for a psychological diagnosis within a given year. Should we take away their Second Amendment rights, as well? Things generally do not go well for minorities when they are disarmed, whether that is African-Americans, Jews, gay people, or transgender people.
The Supreme Court and federal courts have made it clear that disarming an entire group violates constitutional protections, particularly the Second and Fourteenth Amendments. If a court does uphold a Second Amendment ban, it is an individual adjudication based on an assessment or a commitment process, not a group-based ban. I hope that this proposal remains a failed idea in the backroom during a brainstorming session and does not become actual law. If this proposal goes forward it will not solely undermine the rights of transgender Americans. It will establish a dangerous precedent that civil rights can be revoked by bureaucratic fiat. That is a threat to liberty we should all oppose.
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