Media reports that the Trump Administration might be considering a move to ban gun ownership for trans Americans following the August 27 shooting at a Catholic school and church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, have some gun-rights groups speaking out.
The attack at Church of the Annunciation, committed by a young man who had legally changed his name to a woman’s name, left two elementary-age children dead and 17 other people injured. In the aftermath, several media outlets, including CNN, reported that senior Justice Department officials are “weighing proposals” to limit gun ownership rights of trans individuals.
That proposal has drawn the ire of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) and the National Rifle Association. All three groups say such a move would violate the Second Amendment.
“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,” Alan Gottlieb, CCRKBA chairman, said in a news release addressing the issue. “That anyone in the Trump administration would consider such nonsense is alarming.”
As Gottlieb further pointed out, such a blanket prohibition, which would affect an unknown number of people who haven’t harmed anyone, is simply wrong.
“Gun owners already know what it’s like for the government to penalize them for crimes they did not commit,” Gottlieb said. “We shouldn’t even consider such an extreme response to a heinous act committed by one disturbed individual, much less implement it, no matter how horrible the crime. The deranged Minneapolis killer is no longer a threat to anybody, and we needn’t make scapegoats of others who had nothing to do with that outrage, just to create the impression something is being done.”
Gottlieb said the ironic part of the whole situation is that some in the so-called “mainstream” media are suddenly supporting gun rights because somebody in the Trump administration is talking about restricting transgender individuals from exercising their Second Amendment rights.
“The government, no matter who is in charge, must understand that enumerated rights protected by the Constitution cannot be stripped away for what amounts to a publicity stunt,” Gottlieb concluded. “If we allow that to happen to one minority group, it could happen to another group, and then another, until the right becomes a distant memory, especially for those of us who have worked so hard to protect it. This is a bad idea, and it needs to go away immediately.”
In a news release addressing the media reports, the FPC also took issue with the reported proposal.
“Federal statutes and binding Supreme Court precedent make clear that the government cannot impose a categorical ban on an entire class of peaceable people,” the group wrote in the press release. “Under 18 U.S.C. § 922, firearm possession may only be prohibited for certain individuals—such as those adjudicated as a ‘mental defective’ or ‘committed to a mental institution’—and both require individualized findings.”
Ultimately, the FPC said that if such a ban were instituted, the organization would fight the ban in court, just as it has other unjust gun bans.
If the Trump Administration—or any administration—unwisely and immorally chooses to wield the force of government in conflict with the Constitution, federal law or our values, FPC will take aggressive action to defend the rights of peaceable people, just as we have many times before,” FPC concluded.
The NRA, in a social media post, said it also opposed the idea of a ban on a single group of Americans.
“The NRA supports the Second Amendment rights of all law-abiding Americans to purchase, possess and use firearms,” the organization wrote. ”NRA does not, and will not, support any policy proposals that implement sweeping gun bans that arbitrarily strip law-abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights without due process.”
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