A Trans Gun Ban Isn’t the Answer to Mass Shootings

Last year some unnamed DOJ officials briefly floated the idea of banning transgendered individuals from possessing firearms, but after getting public pushback from every major Second Amendment group with a national footprint, the suggestion seems to have been quietly dropped. 

After a mass shooting in British Columbia and a targeted act of familial murder/suicide in Rhode Island committed by trans individuals in the span of less than a week, though, several conservative pundits are now vocally calling for gun bans for transgenders. 

Any adult man with a wife and children who “transitions” to a “woman” is automatically a threat to his family and the public. All of them should be looked at with suspicion and extreme wariness. None of them should be allowed to own guns. They should all be legally required to…

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) February 17, 2026

Correct https://t.co/rAUO11zlIu

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) February 17, 2026

Fox News pundit Lawrence Jones also called for a ban on gun ownership for trans individuals on Tuesday. 

But if you, from a psychological standpoint, think that you are another sex, you should not have a gun. Something that has been diagnosed as gender dysphoria is a problem. And all of us know it. We all have to fill out the federal gun form that talks about mental– you should have to check that box. And it is because the politics surrounding the issue of not wanting to be offensive, we’re not doing the right thing on this. And I’m a purist when it comes to people– I mean, I’m from Texas. We have constitutional carry. Everybody has a gun there. But these– the people that– again, I’m not talking about people that say they want to be transgender, dress a certain way, identify as a certain way, but if you mentally think you’re someone that you are not, that has to be addressed.

Even Breitbart’s Second Amendment columnist AWR Hawkins, who I consider a friend as well as a colleague, seems to be on board with the idea. During a segment on Newsmax Tuesday evening, Hawkins agreed with host Carl Higbie (another friend) that anyone who identifies as trans is so mentally ill that they shouldn’t have access to their Second Amendment rights. 

If you were watching, you know I disagreed with my friends during that segment, and I disagree with Jones and Walsh as well. 

There seem to be three main arguments being used in favor of a trans gun ban; they’re more likely to commit mass shootings, they’re more likely to commit suicide, and they’re mentally ill and therefore shouldn’t be able to own a gun. 

Let’s address that last argument first. We do have a process to prohibit the seriously mentally ill from possessing a firearm, but it is a) done on an individual basis and b) requires a finding that someone poses a danger to themselves or others or is completely unable to manage their affairs. 

If you care about freedom and individual liberty, the idea of a doctor’s diagnosis of a mental disorder automatically leading to the loss of constitutionally-protected rights should make your skin crawl. That sounds like an excellent way to deprive broad swathes of the population from exercising their Second Amendment rights, as well as keeping people away from seeking help with their mental health for fear of losing their rights. 

And if we’re talking about banning gun ownership to everyone who’s diagnosed with gender dysphoria, why would we stop there? Why wouldn’t schizophrenics automatically lose their 2A rights, or those diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder? Heck, why not ban gun ownership for everyone on an anti-depressant, as one X user suggested to me?

It’s easy to imagine the potential for abuse, isn’t it? We already have doctors and nurses going on social media and discussing ways to abuse conservatives, ICE agents, and Trump supporters under their care. A system like this would make it all too easy for some anti-gun psychiatrist or mental health professional to prevent someone from excercising their Second Amendment rights just by diagnosing them with a condition they may or may not have. Just being thought of as a “gun nut” by a mental health professional could be enough to take away your rights. 

The vast majority of mentally ill people will never commit a crime of violence. Heck, the vast majority of virtually any demographic group you can think of will never commit a crime of violence, unless that group is comprised solely of people previously convicted of violent offenses. Using mental illness generally or a diagnosis of gender dysphoria specifically and solely to negate Second Amendment rights is patently unconstitutional and a terrible way to fight violent crime, including mass shootings. 

But what about the idea that trans individuals are disproportionately responsible for those shootings? 

Who commits “active shooter” attacks?

UPDATED: Past 5 years: trans vs non-trans adult rates (FBI definition). pic.twitter.com/J8e44ioJje

— Frank McCormick (@CBHeresy) February 17, 2026

I have no idea how accurate this graphic is, but the footnote at the bottom says it assumes four active shooting incidents were committed by trans individuals though it could not be confirmed. Given the small number of active shootings in general, falsely attributing four of them to trans individuals would wildly skew the statistics, but let’s assume that the numbers are correct. We’re still talking about less than 1 incident per 1,000,000 adults, for both trans and non-trans offenders. That’s a very small number, and is proof positive that far more people who will never pose a threat to themselves or anyone else would be denied their 2A rights than all potential mass killers. 

Transgenders are committing mass public shootings at a very high rate compared to their share of the population. #transgender #masspublicshooting #massshootings https://t.co/nDAJK5mE5u pic.twitter.com/iRUodlJfTA

— John R Lott Jr. (@JohnRLottJr) February 18, 2026

Assuming this data is true, the same research from the Crime Prevention Research Center shows mass shootings by “Middle Easterners” and veterans are also being committed at a very high rate compared to their share of the population.

Compared to Middle Easterners at 1.06% of the general population, they are overrepresented as a share of mass murderers (6.4%) and slightly underrepresented in terms of victims (0.9%). 

…Trans share of mass public shootings over the 2018 to 2025 period is 6.2 times their share of the population. 

… In 2023, about 6.1% of the US were veterans, but almost 20% of mass public shooters over the 1998 through 2025 period were veterans.

What about suicide? It’s undeniably true that trans individuals report thoughts of self-harm at rates far higher than other groups, though I’ve not found any conclusive data on the actual suicide rate of trans individuals. But if we’re going to ban guns for trans people because they have a higher suicide rate than the national average, then we’re also going to have to ban gun possession by military veterans, white men over the age of 65, and even veterinarians. 

There is a fourth argument in favor of banning transgendered individuals from owning guns that I’ve run across, though it generally takes a few exchanges before someone brings it up: Trans people are weird, morally depraved, and shouldn’t be accepted in normal society. 

If that‘s the standard for depriving people of their civil rights, then our rights are meaningless. I think lots of folks are weird, morally depraved, and shouldn’t be accepted in normal society… starting with the vast majority of Hollywood celebrities. But even those we find utterly reprehensible must enjoy the same civil rights that we do, if for no other reason than the fact that someone, somewhere, finds you and I reprehensible too, and our civil rights shouldn’t be subject to whether or not they approve of us. 

The Supreme Court hasn’t fully fleshed out who, exactly, can be denied their right to keep and bear arms, but in Rahimi the Court pointed to a judicial finding of “dangerousness.” 

 When an individual has been found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another, that individual may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment.

The Court went on to say that, “[s]ince the Founding, the Nation’s firearm laws have included regulations to stop individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms.” 

The words “individual” or “individuals” is used 96 times in the Rahimi decision. The Supreme Court made it very clear of the importance of the individualized finding that someone poses a credible threat to the safety of others. Yes, there were some laws in the past that labeled entire categories of people like freed slaves or Catholics as too “dangerous”  to own a gun, but those laws are as repugnant to the Constitution as a ban on gun ownership for anyone identifying as trans would be today. 

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights. Let’s not give them any help. 

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