Trump Admin Reportedly Considers Revoking Trans People’s Right to Own Guns. Only 0.1% of Mass Shooters Are Transgender

President Donald Trump’s Justice Department is reportedly considering a new policy that could affect the transgender community following the mass shooting on Wednesday, Aug. 27, at a Catholic school and church in Minneapolis.

CNN and ABC News report that senior DOJ officials are discussing whether to limit the right to own firearms for transgender people. These talks are still in the early stages and come almost a week after 23-year-old transgender woman Robin Westman opened fire at Annunciation Catholic Church, killing two children and injuring 21 others.

If the policy moves forward, it would be the latest action targeting the transgender community since President Trump began his second term.

Since signing an executive order on Inauguration Day stating that there are only two genders, the president has ordered the Pentagon to remove transgender service members from the military and directed federal prisons to place transgender inmates in facilities matching their birth-assigned gender.

In June, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi launched an effort against gender-affirming care, sending more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics that provide transgender medical procedures to minors.

Despite the reports, it is unclear if the Justice Department could legally enforce a gun ban on all transgender people. One senior DOJ official told CNN that such a proposal would likely face legal challenges, noting that millions of Americans have mental health issues, but as long as they don’t threaten society, their Second Amendment rights cannot be removed.

“Instead of actual solutions, the administration is again choosing to scapegoat and target a small and vulnerable population,” a spokesperson for LGBTQ+ advocacy group GLAAD said, per CNN. “Everyone deserves to be themselves, be safe, and be free from violence and discrimination.”

Transgender people make up less than 2% of the U.S. population and are more often victims of violent crime than perpetrators. A 2021 study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law — which did not account for recent anti-trans attacks — found that transgender people are four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violent crime.

“Research has shown that experiences of victimization are related to low well-being, including suicidal thoughts and attempts,” Ilan H. Meyer, a senior scholar at the Williams Institute, said when the study was published. “The results show the urgent need for policies and interventions that consider high rates of victimization experienced by transgender people.”

Newsweek reported, using data from the Gun Violence Archive, that before the Minneapolis shooting, transgender people accounted for only 0.07% of mass shootings recorded since 2018. Including Westman, the rate rises slightly to about 0.1%.

The Violence Project, which defines “mass shooting” strictly as shootings with four or more deaths in public, records only one transgender mass shooter in all its data dating back to 1966.

“As the investigation into [the Aug. 27] shooting continues, we ask the public and the media to remember that one person’s actions should not be used to target or stigmatize entire communities,” Ash Lazarus Orr, a spokesperson for Advocates for Trans Equality, said after the attack. “Trans and nonbinary people are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators.”

After President Trump took office, The Washington Post shared stories of transgender people who bought firearms for protection because they feared being targeted.

“Trans people have every reason to be afraid because we are being attacked,” May Alejandra Rodriguez told the outlet in February. “Every single day, another right is lost.”

“What’s happening today among trans people is in the tradition of people demanding their rights and saying they’re willing to defend those rights if necessary,” David Yamane, a sociology professor at Wake Forest University, told the Post.

Experts also told USA Today that there is no “epidemic” of transgender people committing mass shootings.

Michael Jensen, research director at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, said, “There’s no evidence that transgender people are disproportionately responsible for mass violence events in the U.S., including school shootings.”