As a troll, this trial balloon from the Department of Justice might achieve gold-medal status. As a trap for gun-grabbers to start defending the Second Amendment, we may look back on it and talk about it in legendary terms -- if successful.
As actual enforcement policy, though ... I have questions. The Daily Wire reports that the DoJ has begun to formulate a plan to declare transgenders mentally ill and bar them from owning or possessing firearms. The move comes after at least two mass shootings in as many years in which transgender perps targeted religious schools and murdered children, plus a number of other violent incidents:
“Individuals within the DOJ are reviewing ways to ensure that mentally ill individuals suffering from gender dysphoria are unable to obtain firearms while they are unstable and unwell,” one source inside the Justice Department told the Daily Wire.
The DOJ’s discussions center on the fact that individuals who identify as transgender suffer from gender dysphoria, a mental disorder, the DOJ source familiar with the conversations shared with The Daily Wire. Gender dysphoria describes the sense of unease that a man or woman may feel if he or she thinks that their biological sex is mismatched with their so-called gender identity.
A DOJ spokesman would not comment on specific measures being considered, but said that a “range of options” are on the table.
“Under Attorney General Bondi’s leadership this Department of Justice is actively considering a range of options to prevent mentally unstable individuals from committing acts of violence, especially at schools,” the spokesman said.
Bear in mind that this isn't yet an actual proposal. It looks like a trial balloon, perhaps meant to be taken more seriously than literally, as Salena Zito remarked about Trump in 2015. The main point of this leak -- or at least its primary purpose -- likely would be to signal that the administration has noticed the correlative connection between transgenders and violence, and to alert voters that they plan to do something about it. That itself is welcome news, especially since the news media and Democrats (pardon the redundancy) refuse to talk about that emerging correlation at all, let alone delve into its mechanisms.
Putting it in terms of the Second Amendment is interesting too, as both a troll and a trap, especially the latter. Trump has been able to lead Democrats by the nose into absurd positions simply by publicly embracing and acting on clear consensuses among the electorate, such as deporting criminal illegal aliens, closing the border, and blocking access to women's sports and spaces to males. By singling out all transgenders for restrictions on a constitutional right, Trump (or Pam Bondi, or Stephen Miller, or whoever) may hope to bait Democrats into defending their right to keep and bear arms. Normally, I'd add that it would be a long shot, but after watching Democrats defend transnational gang members to the point of flying to meet with them over coffee in El Salvador, my skepticism on that point is limited, as is my respect for their intelligence as a group.
If this is meant as a serious -- er, literal -- policy proposal, however, that's another matter.
First off, we do have restrictions on firearms purchases and possession relating to mental illness, so that is not new. However, we do not have restrictions on entire classes of people to restrict this constitutional right. The law applies to individuals who have been either "adjudicated as a mental defective" or "committed to a mental institution." The latter is self-explanatory, but the former suggests more ambiguity. The law, however, makes this determination very specific under 18 USC 922(g)(4):
It is not enough for someone to dress like Corporal Klinger and claim to use xi/xer as personal pronouns to keep them from purchasing firearms. The restrictions in 18 USC 922 all have the same point in common: due process. Each prohibition assumes that due process has taken place, such as commitment hearings and mental-capacity evaluations by "lawful authority" in processes that allow for adversarial responses to such allegations. And note that even this prohibition is conditioned on either being a danger to the person or others and/or lacking mens rea to act in his/her own interests. Neuroses and other non-disabling mental illnesses don't count, nor should they overcome a core and explicit right protected by the Constitution.
Let's say that the DoJ could get around that language by arguing that transgenderism is a fully disabling mental illness, and that should be applied to all those who claim that status. The government would have to demonstrate a consensus on that point if challenged in court, assuming that the court would allow a blanket prohibition at all in the first place. Given the current mood of the medical establishment and the money they make off of these "transitions" in the short and especially long term, that's hardly likely to materialize in the next few years. And if they did, the likely result would be that transgenders simply identify with their biological sex when they purchase firearms.
Even beyond this, though, consider the risk to the Second Amendment if this DoJ succeeds with this proposal, assuming they try to implement it. What other belief systems will future administrations consider a disabling mental illness to deprive entire classes of Americans of their right to effective self-defense? Before you scoff at this, allow me to remind you that the previous administration tried to categorize pro-life activists, pandemic-policy critics, traditional Catholics, and parents objecting to DEI as potential domestic terrorists. That went beyond rhetoric, too; the FBI went after Mark Houck and others, complete with armed raids, while other federal agencies conspired with Big Tech platforms to silence and muffle dissent and debate as a supposed national-security risk.
Frankly, having lived through that, I am no fan of trusting government with extraordinary power just to win a political argument. The last time around, they tried to quash my speech and shut down my access to advertisers. The next time, they'll be kicking in my door to grab my guns because I identify as a pro-life Catholic who opposes DEI and supports border security. To progressives, that's crazy enough to qualify under broad class-based disqualifications.
For now, the signal that the administration takes the danger of radical transgenders and pediatric sex-changes seriously is enough for me. Let's not overdo it.
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