Gun rights groups are, well, up in arms over reports that the Trump administration is considering banning transgender Americans from possessing firearms.
As conservatives use the deadly mass shooting in Minneapolis last week to vilify the transgender community—the shooter was transgender—CNN and The New York Post reported Thursday that Donald Trump’s Justice Department is in preliminary talks about implementing a gun ban for transgender people.
While Republican presidents are typically the darlings of Second Amendment advocates, this idea was denounced swiftly and roundly by every major gun rights organization.
The National Rifle Association condemned “any policy proposals that implement sweeping gun bans that arbitrarily strip law-abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights without due process.”
Gun Owners of America said the organization “opposes any & all gun bans. Full stop.” In another post, GOA deplored the addition of “any new category of persons to the unconstitutionally broad ‘mental defective’ category,” which would “not only block them from purchasing firearms but could result in door-to-door gun confiscation from that new category of individuals.”
On X, the president of the National Association for Gun Rights wrote, “As history proves, any new rules the government invents today will be abused against ill-favored communities, including conservatives and law-abiding gun owners, tomorrow.” The proposal is “just insanity,” an NAGR spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal.
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms issued a statement saying, “We needn’t make scapegoats of others who had nothing to do with that outrage, just to create the impression something is being done.”
The Firearms Policy Coalition warned: “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.”
Kostas Moros, director of legal research and education at the Second Amendment Foundation, called the idea “blatantly unconstitutional” and lacking “any legal basis.” Considering the outpouring of criticism from gun groups, Moros wrote on X: “To the extent [the proposed ban] was a trial balloon, we all hit it like a clay pigeon.”
The post In a Fun New Twist, Trump Manages to Anger the NRA appeared first on New Republic.
