Prohibiting transgender people from owning firearms, their justification being that supposedly, “Statistically, the trans population has been prone to violence.” White House Senior Director for Counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka made similar remarks: "In just a couple of years, we have seen seven mass shootings involving people of transgender nature or who are confused in their gender. Seven in just the last couple of years. That is inordinately high."
Let’s look at real facts here:
1) Crime and terrorism experts still agree: There is no evidence that transgender people are more likely to commit gun violence than others.
2) The Violence Prevention Project at Hamline University studied mass shootings that it defined as shootings in public places that resulted in four fatalities excluding the shooter. Its analysis found that males were the perpetrators in 98% of the shootings, female shooters accounted for 2% of the attacks and transgender people accounted for less than 1%. (The Minneapolis incident would not qualify as a mass shooting under Hamline’s definition.)
3) The number of mass shootings in the U.S. since 2018 ranges from the tens to the thousands, depending on the data and criteria used to measure them. The most expansive definition comes from Gun Violence Archive, a nationally recognized source for gun violence data, which counts any incident in which four or more people are shot or killed, excluding the shooter — the only definition under which the Minneapolis incident would qualify. If all seven shooting incident attackers included in Gorka and Fox News’ lists were counted, that would be seven out of 4,147 mass shootings from 2018 to 2025, based on Gun Violence Archive data — a rate of 0.17% as of Aug. 28.
4) When PolitiFact asked Fox News for evidence, they said Gorka posted a list of six incidents on X. Out of nine cases Fox News and Gorka cited going back to 2018, four involved shooters who identified as transgender, a PolitiFact review of news reports, investigations and court records found. One was nonbinary, which means they did not see themselves as exclusively male or female; in the other cases, the perpetrator’s gender identity was not as clear as Fox News and Gorka framed. Two incidents did not qualify as a mass shooting by any definition — one because it was not a shooting, and the other because the gunfire resulted in one injury, no fatalities.
5) When Fox News was approached for evidence, a spokesperson sent Statista data showing that, as of Aug. 11, there had been 60 mass shootings since 2018. The spokesperson listed six cases of shooters who she said were experiencing gender dysphoria, or the experience of distress that some people feel when their sex and gender identity don’t align. Of the nine incidents that Gorka and Fox News together mentioned, one involved a Molotov cocktail tossed at Tesla vehicles in Kansas City in March, not a shooting. Another, in which a transgender person was wanted in connection to a shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Texas, left one police officer injured and resulted in no fatalities. And not all of the cases involved shooters who clearly identified as trans. In a 2023 Philadelphia shooting, for example, an adviser to the district attorney’s office said the suspect "has not identified themselves as trans," NBC News reported. And defense attorneys for the suspect in a 2022 shooting at Colorado’s Club Q nightclub — who was apprehended after the attack — wrote in court documents that the shooter identified as nonbinary. After a 2024 shooting at Perry High School in Iowa, people claimed the shooter was trans because his social media posts contained LGBTQ+ symbolism and messages in support of transgender people. Officials, however, did not comment about the shooter’s gender identity. Even in the Minneapolis case, tabloid reports premised on a YouTube video said the shooter’s writings included some ambiguity around being transgender. In other words, in most of the cases, the shooter did not clearly identify as transgender, but had shown some interest in LGBTQ+ issues; contrary to what the Conservative media seems to feel, one does not equate to the other.
6) Judging by any of the multiple definitions of a mass shooting, the number of trans mass shooters would not show any statistical evidence that trans shooters are disproportionately more prone to violence than nontransgender people. An August 2025 report from the LGBTQ+ policy research center Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles found that 2.8 million people ages 13 and above identify as transgender in the U.S. That’s 1% of people in the U.S. aged 13 and older. “If trans persons are 1% of the general population, but only 0.17% of the population of mass shooters, then they are under-represented in this group," said Laura Dugan, Ohio State University of human security and sociology professor.
And finally……
7) A 2023 FBI report on active shooters cited the Covenant Presbyterian School shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, where the assailant was identified by authorities as "female/transgender male." All of the other 48 active shooters in that year were male, the report said. “When you're looking at the average violence across the community, disproportionately, you know it's white, straight men," said Mia Bloom, Georgia State University professor of communication and Middle East studies.
Statistics show that 98% of shooters in mass shooter events are male, and 53% of them are white, 21% black, 9% Latino, 7% Asian, 4% Middle Eastern, and 1% Native American.
Based on those numbers, shouldn’t the Trump administration be restricting gun ownership by White Males? Or perhaps they should be looking at some real form of gun control? Something like increased background checks? Restricting the sale of high volume magazines? Or some other real solution?
Oh, and as an aside, just before he was shot, Charlie Kirk was asked if he knew how many mass shootings had really been perpetrated by a transgender person. Know what his answer was? “Too many.”
So OK, even one mass shooting is too many - but Charlie Kirk and his type never use real facts. It’s too easy to pull crap off of the internet and use transgender people as an easy scapegoat to push their prejudice and hate mongering.
But the irony that he was talking about gun control when he was shot is pretty clear - and how long before Fox News and MAGA world tries to blame the shooting on a transgender person?
Comments
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How About
The problem with focusing on gun deaths is there are so few of them. When one factors in vehicle deaths. If everyone was really serious about curbing deaths they would discuss removing all vehicles. 1.19 million die in vehicle deaths every year. Approximately 40,901 died in 2023 in the U.S. Remember "First They Came" by Pastor Martin Niemöller. It's so easy to point at the problem as long as it isn't our ox being threatened also until it's too late. Maybe telling everyone to give up their gun is telling the Shepherd to let the wolves eat the sheep?
In my humble opinion, Trump is mentally in his old TV show The Apprentice and has lost all contact with the real world. We traded one mentally challenged president for another. Banning medical, jobs, class protection, guns, etc for one class of people is one of those slippery slopes. Once begun who is next? Hitler did it to perfection and it worked until he was absolute dictator.
I'm not too happy with the concept it is too easy to tag a class of people either good or bad by one's perception of them. When reading the following please understand I started carrying daddy's guns when I was six years old. In my lifetime I've seen windows rolled down, keys left in the ignition, and rifles left in the gun rack in the back window. Now everyone makes double sure any gun is under the seat out of sight and the vehicle is locked with windows rolled up. I want everyone to look at their cell phone, take a double look at their computer, and think about all the micro electronics in their vehicle. All the military electronics in the U.S. and most foreign nations uses her inventions. Computer chips are designed with her patents. She left this world last year with very few knowing what she did even though every man, woman, child has been touched in some way by what she designed. Her name was Lynn Conway and she was transgender. Don't make the same mistake the gun haters have. Because I carry doesn't make me insane nor a killer. When pointing a finger as someone else, remember three fingers are pointing back at self.
Hugs D.Eden
Barb
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Gun deaths are higher than more vehicle traffic deaths
According to the CDC in 2023, total firearm deaths in the U.S. were 46,728, while motor vehicle traffic deaths were 43,273, making firearm deaths the greater cause of death for the year. So with your logic, we should be banning guns before cars. That is just looking at fatalities.
Now, let us look at the risk involved in using a gun versus driving a motor vehicle. When a gun is used as intended, the risk of death is astronomically greater than driving a motor vehicle. The purpose behind using them are different. The purpose of firing a gun is to kill someone, while the objective of driving a motor vehicle is transportation from one point to another. Also, motor vehicles are used more often and longer by more people than guns.
Comparing motor vehicle deaths to gun deaths is not serious. It is a distraction so people do not look at what guns are made for: to kill. I do not know one sane person who is scared when they see someone get into their motor vehicle and use it, yet when someone pulls out their gun and starts to use it people run for their lives. Hell, if they just pull it out and aim it people run.
Accidental or Suicide
In 2023, a total of 46,728 Americans died from firearms, with 27,300 of these being suicides, a record high for the third consecutive year. The remaining deaths included 17,927 homicides, 463 unintentional injuries, and an estimated 604 fatalities from law enforcement encounters. We are left with 17,927 murders by gun. Please excuse me as I definitely do not want to face a killer holding a gun while I find my cell phone and tell him or her to wait while I call the sheriff. Same goes for looking at anyone who wants to beat me up, rob me, knife me. I am also sure going out to talk to the coyotes, stray dogs, raccoons and others who think livestock is an all you can eat buffet will pursued them to leave the livestock alone. Not everyone should be allowed to operate, drive, semis, large construction equipment, farm equipment, fly anything leaving the ground, be in control of a boat or ships, etc. If someone can't or shouldn't then why tell those who can, they can't either? The thing on my hip and or in my purse is sometimes a deterrent, simply a tool.
Hugs Sarah
Barb
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Please break down the numbers
Please break down the numbers. Gun deaths are heavily skewed towards suicide - but are still included in the gross numbers. Automobiles are used for murder regularly. (If you're drunk, and you're behind the wheel, you're committing premeditated murder.) They also include all instances where people used a firearm to defend themselves as a "Gun death", without giving any additional categories. There's no way to excuse a Car Death as being defensive in nature (unless they're driving the car into a dinosaur to defend their town from the invasion.)
One of the nastiest billboards I've ever seen, partially supported by the Ad Council, was an anti-veteran posting by the Brady group. It deliberately implied that all veterans were mental incompetents and you MUST lock guns away from them. I would suggest that any group that will do that has an agenda far beyond 'protecting' anyone.
Keep in mind that the cities with the highest gun violence instances tend to have the strictest gun control laws. (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington D.C.) Criminals don't care if they're illegal - because breaking the law is what they do. "Banning" guns will just make what guns are around even more dangerous, because they're not as refined - any machine shop can make a gun, "true" gunpowder is easily made from chemicals that aren't easy to restrict, and while making primers is dangerous, it can be hidden much more easily than making crystal meth. (if you go for old school designs, or even possibly electric ignition, you could remove primers completely).
Then people would be carrying braces of pistols again :)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
False Equivalence
Comparing deaths involving motor vehicles with deaths caused by guns is not a valid comparison. Death resulting from pulling the trigger on a firearm is nearly always intentional.
Deaths involving vehicles are nearly always accidental and are the result of a misjudgment of some kind. Some may be due to a mechanical failure, others by a failure on the part of the driver, such as driving too fast, bad road conditions, a lapse in attention, etc. While I don't have statistics I would maintain that the use of a vehicle as a murder weapon is exceedingly rare.
Gun control does work. That has been proved here in Australia. Restrictions on gun ownership after one particularly nasty mass murder have drastically reduced the incidence of murder by gun. That reform did not take all guns away from all people but restricted automatic and semi-automatic weapon ownership. Firearms are still allowed for hunting and other rural occupations, gun clubs, and our police are still armed. That hasn't stopped all gun violence and probably never will but it is now generally within bounds acceptable to the vast majority. They can go about their daily business in (relative) safety and their kids can go to school without their parents worrying that they will be killed.
I would think that is a goal worth pursuing.
As a responsible gun owner……
I do not advocate the banning of guns. However, there are definitely types of firearms which should not be available to the general public; I actually own several of them, but then again I am not the general public. those weapons were the tools of my trade for many years, and are now safely locked away as mementos of that time in my life. And yes, I do keep them in working order and I do actually take them to the firing range on a regular basis. Having a son, and two nephews, in law enforcement gives me access to several firing ranges at no cost, including the use of several shoot houses. Not to mention still being carried by the US Navy as a reservist due to my specialty and my background gives me access to certain things not available to the general public.
However, I absolutely agree that there are many people who should not be allowed access to firearms. And those who are allowed access to them should not have access to certain types of firearms, or to specific modifications to those firearms. No one uses an Ar-15 to hunt game - it is a terrible weapon for hunting. Its original design comes from the Stoner Carbine, or the AR-10. The Stoner Carbine was designed for the US Military, but it was rejected in favor of the M14 in 1959. Eugene Stoner refined his original design into the AR-15 (AR coming from Armalite, the company who originally manufactured them), which was adopted by the US military as the M16, and later modified to become the M4 currently in use.
My point is that the AR15 was designed as a military weapon, and its only use was to wound, maim, and kill a human being. Because of its design and the ammo it uses, it is a shitty weapon for hunting - and anyone who claims to own one for that purpose is full of shit. Or has no clue what they are doing, and in either case they shouldn’t have it. The same is true about high capacity magazines, bump stocks, laser sights, etc. - no true hunter needs a 30 round magazine when hunting. When I was a child, I was taught this truism about hunting - One shot, one deer. Two shots, maybe one deer. Three shots, no deer.
The point being here is that no one needs a 30 round magazine to hunt with. If you missed your first shot, you more than likely will not get a second one. Also, the best hunting rifles are bolt action. Semiautomatic or automatic weapons are less accurate, and less powerful as the gas and recoil from the round are used to extract the spent cartridge and load the next into the chamber. This takes away from the power of the fired round, which also makes it less useful for large game. It is also why almost all sniper rifles are bolt action. The more power transferred into the projectile, the longer the range and the more accurate the shot.
For military uses, the ability to fire more rounds without reloading is more important. Generally, in combat you will not see your opponent bolting away like a deer after the first shot; rather, he and his friends will be trying to kill you, so being able to fire repeatedly without having to reload or work a bolt is more important. Also, lighter ammo means a soldier can carry more. This is not as critical for a hunter. In order to get more stopping power from lighter ammo, military firearms and ammo have been designed differently than civilian ammo. Things like frangible rounds, steel jacketed rounds, tumbling ammo, and higher muzzle velocities give greater putdown capability to smaller rounds. They also make for very poor ammunition for hunting as it spoils the meat.
But without even looking at weapon types, there are just plain some people who should never be allowed to possess a firearm. This is the point behind background checks, not to mention the fact that the information gathered by those background checks is what is used to solve many crimes. Even as I write this, the rifle used to kill Charlie Kirk is in the hands of the police, who will be using the serial number from the rifle to trace its owner. Of course, that assumes that a background check was done when it was purchased, which of course depends on where it was purchased and who it was sold by as laws vary from state to state.
There are many things which can be done without taking firearms away from everyone - things which can make all of us safer, and yet still leave those firearms which have uses as tools available to those who can and will use them responsibly.
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
D.Eden - While I understand
D.Eden - While I understand where you're coming from, you're still advocating violating the Constitution that you swore an oath to defend. The courts argued out types of weapons allowed by people vs the government while the 'founding fathers' were still alive. Remember that machine guns have been around since the Civil War, and there were no arguments against personal ownership of anything portable until the massive growth of government post-WW-I (Prohibition). What everything boiled down to, as I recall, was that if it requires more than one person to use, it's not covered by the second amendment as 'arms'. (The original court case was over a town salvaging cannon from a sunken ship, and setting it up for their town to use. Those were taken away by the state in question) Bazookas/rocket launchers are covered under 'cannon', as are mortars. Grenades aren't arms, because they aren't wielded by an individual. (However, up until the 60's, at least, you could walk into an agricultural office and buy six sticks of dynamite and six detonators/fuse. My grandfather did all the stump and boulder blowing for farmers around him. )
Are those weapons made for killing? Absolutely. All firearms are meant for killing! Even the ones for target practice can kill. Trying to argue that because a gun is a stupid design for a home makes it no longer protected is sophistry. Personally, I don't even own a long gun larger than a .22 - but I own a lot of handguns. I do no hunting, of men or animals, but if I need to, I can hit a squirrel with a handgun from 75 yards, based on using it at the 'short' rifle range.
Even background checks, technically, are violations of the Second Amendment - because it's too easy to screw someone's background up - or judge someone for something done when they were an idiot kid 20 years prior.
To me, other than someone under specific judicial order, the only people that can legitimately, Constitutionally, have their rights restricted are those that are either in prison, or on parole. (Parole means you're still serving your sentence. Until you complete your sentence, your rights are massively restricted. I don't believe in the 'you never get them back'. If you've served your time, that should be the end of the abuse)
Education, education, education. That's what fixes most of these problems. Not hiding from them, but making sure everyone knows what they are, how to use them safely, and what to do if you're exposed to one.
Put the power back in the hands of the individual, where it belongs. Take it away from the Stasi and Gestapo.
Remember, "When seconds count, they're minutes away."
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
If you read the Second Amendment…….
It says, and I quote, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Much has been read into these simple words written over 200 years ago, but the simple fact is that at the time firearms were essentially limited to muskets, rifled muskets, and breech loading pistols - all generally flintlocks. Hence there was no need to worry about whether or not the average citizen needed to own an automatic weapon. In all honesty, when the Constitution was written, many citizens actually had better firearms than the military issued.
The most common military weapon at that time was essentially a smooth bore musket with a very long bayonet. It wasn’t the weapon that made soldiers deadly - it was the training. The British Army equipped their soldiers with the Brown Bess, which was a very simple and inaccurate smooth bore musket. However, in the hands of trained British soldiers, who would stand and march into fire unflinchingly, it was a fearsome weapon. Not because of it’s accuracy, but because they were trained to load and fire in volley at a faster rate than their opponents, and to close to a range at which the inaccuracy of their weapons was not a factor. And then to charge into their opponents with fixed bayonets, striking terror into the opposing forces.
Most farmers, or other civilians who hunted for food, in the early US owned a rifled musket - the renowned American Long Rifle, or Pennsylvania Rifle (sometimes called the Kentucky Long Rifle), which was a muzzle loading rifle with a barrel considerably longer than the average military musket. It was much more accurate than its military contemporary, but it took longer to load and was not designed to take a bayonet. They also had a greater tendency to fouling of the bore under prolonged use, making them poor tools for a soldier.
It wasn’t until the invention of the Minie’ ball in 1847 that rifled weapons became practical for military use.
Also, as there was no large standing army in the early United States, the government relied more heavily on militia who provided their own weapons. This is no longer true, as even National Guard units are equipped with specialized military weapons supplied by the government. Soldiers have not been required to provide their own weapons in many, many years. Therefore, the need for citizens to keep and bear military grade weaponry is no longer a necessity.
As I stated before, I own firearms of my own and do not advocate taking them away from everyone. But we need to be realistic and realize that NO ONE needs to own a machine gun in order to serve in a militia. And let’s face it, even the word militia has taken on new meanings and connotations in our world than it had when the Constitution was written. What comes to mind when you think of a militia in this day and age? The Proud Boys? Oath Keepers? The Michigan Militia? NFAC (Not Fucking Around Committee)? Home Guard? All of these are listed as among the largest paramilitary groups in the United States, and all are private, right-wing, anti-government groups that engage in paramilitary activities and training, and have been tied to domestic extremist movements and potential threats to public safety. These are what the word militia means today. Distinctly different than what our founding fathers described in the Second Amendment.
The founding fathers were intentionally vague in the wording of many things, and they had no way of predicting how our country would develop over the next two centuries and more. That is why we have courts to interpret the Constitution, and it is also why we as responsible citizens need to look at how to maintain the rights of ALL people. Not just those who feel they need to own an automatic rifle to “hunt with”.
And if you are advocating teaching everyone how to use firearms, and then expect that to be the answer, perhaps we should harken back to the range wars of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Yeah, that worked out well………
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
I'd disagree here. A huge
I'd disagree here. A huge percentage of those automobile deaths, at a minimum, are caused by deliberate action. That of deliberately becoming mentally impaired and climbing into a vehicle. Any deaths from that should be classified as premeditated murder, not 'accidents'. A small number of the deaths (and a larger number of injuries) from firearms are from 'accidents', and almost all of those are self-inflicted.
To point out to people from other countries - your arguments about 'gun control' are just as flawed, if not more so, than those from the US. You have no actual understanding of the core document that allowed the US to continue to operate more than 15 years. That is, the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States of America. (Mind you, most "gun control" Americans are just as ignorant, and many of the politicians don't care about constitutionality, just power.)
Here's the short of it. The Constitution was rejected by all of the states (because that's not what Adams/Hamilton were told to do). To make it acceptable, the 'Bill of Rights' was added. Yes, Hamilton and Adams wanted a federalist superstate with no real rights for people or even most of the states themselves. If you want to know EXACTLY what was intended by the Second Amendment, it's very clearly explained in what was called the Federalist Papers. The right to keep and bear arms is specifically there for two purposes. To defend people and their homes from outside threats (animals, other people) - and to overthrow their own government (defend themselves from politicians). You can understand why bureaucrats and politicians are always working towards 'gun control'. To that purpose, it says straight out, "The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed".
The constant nitpicking is usually over the 'infringed'.
The only way to put in gun seizure - the only 'gun control' that almost works, is to have a full Constitutional Amendment to eliminate the second Amendment.
That said, the last two 'first world' countries that put in _full_ gun control were Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany. Canada is working its way there, Australia the same.
The _right_ way to approach it, within the bounds of the law and Constitution, would be to require that all people must take, at a minimum, a gun safety course before they can get a government identification card or drivers license. Much of what causes the issues is that the laws target the law abiding, rather than the criminals. Keep in mind that criminals don't obey the law - it's rather a requirement for the position. So, if you have one person that breaks the law by bringing out a "Magic Death Machine(tm)", that person cannot be stopped because everyone ELSE that can potentially retaliate is disallowed from having a gun. Even former soldiers, who I would HOPE know how to properly handle weapons after two years serving. Switzerland thinks so.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
The USA Is Not The World
There is no movement in Australia to totally remove firearms from the public. I'm too old now but I could have purchased a gun, had I wanted to, from one of the local gun shops. I would have had to register my purchase with the local police before the proprietor actually handed over the weapon and I would have had a background check to ensure that I didn't have a criminal record or a medical history of instability. I didn't think those provisos were unreasonable.
The weapon in question would have been a rifle or a shotgun, not a hand-gun (although handguns are allowed for sport-shooting) or an automatic or semi-automatic weapon.
We actually have a political party called the "Hunters, Shooters and Fishers ". They usually garner about 1 to 2% of the national vote at elections, which indicates that there is no great dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs.
Nobody will ever stop illegal arms-dealing by criminals. That is a given, but surely we all want the general public to be as safe as possible.
Undisciplined drinkers do get behind the wheel when they shouldn't and tragedy sometimes results from their actions, but even they don't normally do that with the intention to kill. They do it through thoughtlessness or recklessness. We also have pretty tough drink-driving laws. I don't know what the similar laws are in the USA but the penalties here are severe. I personally suffered a loss of license for one month after being stopped with a blood-alcohol level of .07 in the middle of the day. The limit is .05. I was lucky, had my transgression been greater I could have been banned for a year or more, and if I had caused an accident I could have been sent to jail.
I would also point out that "arms" are not limited to firearms. Swords, knives and cross-bows or longbows come under that definition too. I could own any of those within our laws without restriction or any kind of qualification. We are not a dictatorship.
I wish I could say that about your nation but in today's circumstances I cannot. Your Constitution doesn't seem to be working very well at the moment.
Trump Doesn't Care About Facts
The basic flaw in your posting is thinking that Trump cares about facts.
He is at war with any source of actual facts while he feels free to fabricate any "facts" that will support his current obsession.
Trump's army of "Yes Men" will then parrot anything they think will please Trump.
Michelle B