❓WHAT HAPPENED: The Department of Justice (DOJ) is considering imposing restrictions that would prevent those undergoing gender transition or diagnosed with gender dysphoria from purchasing firearms.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: The DOJ, gun owners, and transgenders.
📍WHEN & WHERE: DOJ discussions were revealed on Thursday, September 4, 2025, after a mass shooting at a Catholic mass in Minnesota, carried out by a transgender gunman.
💬KEY QUOTE: “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.” — DOJ Official
🎯IMPACT: The DOJ could move to extend restrictions on gun ownership for the mentally ill to include those who identify as transgender or who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is considering imposing restrictions that would prevent those undergoing gender transition or diagnosed with gender dysphoria from purchasing firearms. Notably, the potential legal restrictions come in the wake of anti-Trump transgender Robin Westman’s deadly attack on a back-to-school Mass at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last week.
Reportedly, the DOJ is discussing internally whether to extend restrictions that bar certain mentally ill people from owning firearms to those with gender dysphoria, which is itself classified as a mental disorder. A DOJ source, speaking with the media, explained: “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.”
Officially, the DOJ is not commenting on the deliberations, with a spokesman only saying that the agency is considering a “range of options.” However, the deadly church shooting in Minnesota last week has sparked a public debate about new restrictions, especially in light of the fact that a number of recent mass shootings were perpetrated by individuals with gender dysphoria or who identified as transgender.
Meanwhile, the Trump White House is believed to be updating its national security strategy to include guidance regarding transgender violence. In January this year, A U.S. Border Patrol officer in Vermont was murdered by two people with ties to a militant transgender extremist group called the “Zizians.” In February, the leader of the “Zizians”— Jack LaSota, a 34-year-old man who identifies as a transgender woman under the alias Andrea Phelps—was arrested in Maryland’s western backcountry.
LaSota had been on the run since he skipped a December trial. Previously, he faked his death to duck prosecution and was even declared deceased in San Mateo County, California.
President Donald J. Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was also the target of an assassination plot in January, with the suspect revealed to identify as transgender. Ryan Michael English, also known as Riley Jane, admitted to police that he wanted to kill Treasury Secretary Bessent.
The National Pulse reported last Thursday that Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had announced an investigation into whether psychiatric medication is contributing to the rise in mass shootings, especially those perpetrated by transgender individuals. “I certainly consider mass shootings a health crisis, and we are doing for the first time real studies to find out what the ideology of that is. And we’re looking for the first time at psychiatric drugs,” Kennedy stated.
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