The Department of Justice Finally Acts on Gun Control and All It Took Was Transphobia
Look, Mom! MAGA is MAGAing again.
On Thursday morning, I woke up to this CNN headline:
Trump DOJ is looking at ways to ban transgender Americans from owning guns, sources say
And I laughed.
Not the kind of laugh that scampers behind an inappropriate joke, but the incredulous laughter that escapes your soul as you attempt to process a cascade of disgust.
For what feels like eons, those of us who actually consider America’s penchant for mass shootings unacceptable have pleaded for gun reform. And for even longer, the 2nd Amendment has done nothing but point and laugh in our faces.
Republicans have gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that school shootings remain as common as free refills—blocking assault weapons bans and background checks one minute; kicking the ATF in the nuts the next. But since offering “thoughts and prayers” is apparently the antidote for everything but bigotry, we now live in a world where an administration run by a 34-time felon has finally pulled the trigger on gun control.
All it took was a generous scoop of transphobia.
In the wake of the Minneapolis Catholic church shooting, senior Justice Department officials are weighing proposals to limit transgender people’s right to possess firearms, according to two officials familiar with the internal discussions.
The talks, described as preliminary in nature, appear to build on an idea that has gained some currency in conservative media since the Minneapolis shooting that killed two children and injured 21, most of them children, at Annunciation Catholic Church, an attack that police say was carried out by a 23-year-old transgender woman.
Never mind the fact that cis-white males are overwhelmingly the purveyors of mass shootings. The Department of Justice would rather apply the universal law of “do as I say, not as I do” to the entire trans community—regardless of their presumed propensity for violence, and based purely on their having the audacity to embrace their true identity.
But Justice Department leadership is seriously considering whether it can use its rulemaking authority to follow on to Trump’s determination to bar military service by transgender people and declare that people who are transgender are mentally ill and can lose their Second Amendment rights to possess firearms, according to one Justice official.
Thankfully, there are a myriad of legalities that make targeting trans men and women in this manner extremely unlikely. But instead of continuously terrorizing the LGBTQ+ community for sport, perhaps Trump’s energy would be better served by sending in the National Guard to every Republican National Convention so that they can start embracing their own sexuality and stop crashing Grindr.