How a Transgender Gun Ban Would Mimic Past Gun Control Evils

Following the shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school, the Department of Justice was reportedly mulling a gun ban for transgender people. The argument was that gender dysphoria is a mental illness, and with several high-profile shootings involving transgender killers, it would be logical to keep this group of people disarmed.

Obviously, the anti-gunners who routinely talk about disarming groups of people were outraged because this time, the proposal favored one of their target demographics.

However, a lot of pro-gun folks such as myself had a problem with it, too.

As Jacob Sullum notes at The Hill, that’s because it’s a repeat of some of the worst anti-gun evils.

The Justice Department is reportedly considering a rule that would bar transgender people from possessing guns, on the theory that they are “mentally ill” and therefore “unstable.” The proposal, which has no obvious statutory basis, is so constitutionally dubious that it has provoked objections from every major gun rights group.

The rationale for disarming transgender Americans nevertheless resembles the logic underlying the absurdly broad categories of “prohibited persons” who are forbidden to own firearms under current law.

Of course, Sullum focuses on current evils such as disarming millions of Americans who may have committed a crime, but were never likely to be a threat to the public’s safety.

However, I’m going to go deeper than that.

See, in my mind, a transgender gun ban mimics those laws that disarmed Native Americans, Catholics, or other disfavored groups back in the day. Gun control itself was largely created in this country to disarm disfavored groups as a whole. Many gun laws during Reconstruction may have looked like they applied to everyone, but it was with the understanding that no white sheriff would arrest a white man for carrying a gun.

No, those only applied to black folks.

Gun laws that target a particular group of people, even if there’s a perception that the group in question is far more violent than the norm, still mimic the past evils only too well.

Especially since one can point to statistics that suggest black people are particularly violent when you look at homicide arrests, or that white people are particularly violent when you look at mass shooters.

But we should never punish entire groups for the actions of individuals. Gun control is really nothing more than that, even when it’s applied across the board. It’s us being told we can’t have an AR-15 or a 30-round magazine because some guy did something awful.

How is that appreciably different? Is it because it doesn’t affect most of us?

Sure, that may be the case…for now. Later, though, when that’s used to justify impacting gun rights for the rest of us, will that be OK? No? Then defend gun rights for all.

Period.

Editor’s Note: While this proposed restriction is bad news, for the most part, President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.

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