The Justice Department is considering weakening federal gun regulations in order to curry favor with Second Amendment activists, according to reports.
Unnamed insiders told The Washington Post that the Trump administration is mulling whether to loosen limits on private firearm sales, imports, and shipping by mail.
The changes are reportedly still being debated, with officials weighing the need to please the gun rights lobby while maintaining the power of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).
But in at least one way, the proposed changes would tighten the rules: requiring gun buyers to list their birth sex on the purchase paperwork, even if they have legally or medically changed it.
That would force transgender people who have changed their names to effectively out themselves as trans — or else lie on a government form.
“The Biden Administration waged war against the Second Amendment, but that era has come to an end under Attorney General [Pam] Bondi, who has led the Justice Department’s effort to protect the Second Amendment through litigation, civil rights enforcement, regulatory reform, and by ending abusive enforcement practices,” a DoJ spokesperson told the Post.
“Whenever law-abiding gun owners’ constitutional rights are violated, the Trump Administration will fight back in defense of freedom and the Constitution.”
The Trump administration has often sought to roll back gun laws, such as by suing the District of Columbia over its restrictions on semi-automatic weapons and asking the Supreme Court to review a law against people who use illegal drugs possessing firearms.
Meanwhile, federal gun seizures have dropped dramatically as the administration reassigns ATF agents to its sweeping crackdown against immigrants.
The notable exception has been trans people. Last year the DoJ reportedly considered whether it could ban trans people from gun ownership entirely, on the basis that being trans makes you mentally ill.
Gun rights groups spoke out against that idea, with the National Rifle Association saying it “does not, and will not, support any policy proposals that implement sweeping gun bans that arbitrarily strip law-abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights without due process.”
The Independent has asked the ATF for comment.
