I'm not one to defend the ATF because, well, it's the ATF. They'll murder your wife and child because someone working for the FBI entrapped you into sawing off the barrel of a shotgun a smidge too short, or conduct a raid at your house in the wee hours of the morning rather than arrest you to or from work.
And don't even talk about having a dog and getting a visit from the ATF.
However, a piece at The Independent accused the ATF of trying to intimidate trans gun owners, which grabbed my attention. After all, following several incidents of mass shootings by trans-identifying individuals, there has been some talk about potentially restricting their access to guns. Was the ATF doing this unilaterally somehow?
Well, as shocking as this sounds, the media has decided to frame things as a bit more nefarious than they actually are.
The Trump administration’s proposed new rules on gun ownership are intended to scare transgender people out of buying weapons, leading pro-Second Amendment activists say.
A new rule enacted by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives would mean all new gun owners must list their birth sex on mandatory purchase paperwork, even if they have legally or medically changed genders.
Such a rule would make it easier for ATF to gather lists of trans gun owners, simply by identifying where names appear to conflict with the listed sex, according to firearms policy experts.
It could also deter trans people from buying guns legally, since complying with paperwork would create a “Catch 22” situation — and a false statement comes with the threat of federal charges and prison time, the experts said.
"Just the announcement is going to have a chilling effect," Patrick G. Eddington, a senior fellow in homeland security and civil liberties at the Cato Institute, told The Independent.
"It's pretty clear that [Trump's team] want to try to collect data on individuals who don't fit the regime's idea of who is male and female... [creating] a de facto registry of people by gender identity."
I don't know about that. I mean, I can agree that it might have a chilling effect on sales, because many trans people refuse to acknowledge their birth genders at all, even as they use the "trans" label for themselves, which kind of acknowledges what was down below when they were born. They won't necessarily want to acknowledge that, and for a variety of reasons.
Sounds like a good reason to scrap the whole Form 4473 thing, doesn't it?
Plus, if the ATF is going to compile a list of gun owners who are trans, maybe it's a good time to scrap the whole ability of the ATF to do any such thing? I mean, as it stands, they're unlikely to be able to do much of that with gun stores that are still open, thus maintain their own records, but when they close, that becomes a different thing. Let's put an end to that, too.
But is this really the ATF behind this? Yeah, not so much.
The current status of this policy change is unclear. Having first confirmed it to Oregon’s Eugene Weekly newspaper last June, ATF officials recently softened their language in response to questions fromThe Independent.
But they confirmed they were updating the policies in line with Trump's January 2025 executive order, which declared that the federal government would no longer recognize trans identities.
This isn't a new policy. You can debate the moral issues of it if you want, but this is happening across the federal government, so it's not really targeting trans gun owners so much as fulfilling Trump's orders that are being applied everywhere else, too. I don't like the ATF, but they don't get to ignore the president's orders because some people don't like the way it makes them feel.
Then again, that's how some think everyone should respond to any directive by the Trump administration to any agency of the executive branch.
Now, I can't help but wonder just how many of these trans gun owners routinely support politicians who also want to empower the ATF more and more. How many of the people they voted for actually want the ATF to have the power and access to do this, if not more?
And how many will do it again later this year?
I'm not going to get into the trans debate here. I tend to think people can live their lives as they wish, and if there's some legal designation that switches their genders for legal purposes, Trump shouldn't override that on a whim.
But you get what you vote for, and if gun rights matter to you, but you keep voting for anti-gun politicians, don't be surprised if the outcome isn't something you like.
Editor's Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.
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