Federal officials are considering whether to restrict firearm ownership for transgender individuals, according to the AP and people familiar with internal Justice Department discussions.
The talks come in the aftermath of last month’s Minneapolis Catholic school shooting, which investigators say was carried out by a transgender suspect. While no formal proposal has been made, senior officials have been weighing whether existing federal law — which bars people deemed mentally unfit from owning guns — could be applied to individuals diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
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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