New rules from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives could effectively criminalize transgender people trying to buy firearms, raising concerns about whether they can exercise their Second Amendment rights.
The move stems from President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring that the federal government recognizes only two genders, male and female, based on biological anatomy at birth.
The change would require all gun buyers to state their assigned gender on their purchase documents, even if they have legally changed their gender or undergone gender confirmation surgery. This puts transgender people at risk of identifying themselves as “out” or lying on government documents. The crime is punishable by up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, or up to 10 years if the lie is deemed “material” to the sale.
Even if a purchaser truthfully states their assigned gender at birth on a form (known as Firearms Transaction Record or ATF Form 4473), they can still be accused of “lying” and prosecuted if their official ID reflects their gender identity rather than their assigned sex at birth, or if that designation does not match their current appearance or physical characteristics.
Intersex people, often born with ambiguous sexual characteristics and assigned a legal sex that may not match their gender identity or chromosomal makeup, can face a similar predicament.
Last year, the ATF acknowledged that: eugene weekley It said it plans to update Form 4473 to require purchasers to indicate the gender assigned at birth.
An ATF spokesperson responded to questions. independent personsaid the agency is “updating and simplifying” Form 4473 to make it “more concise and user-friendly,” including “appropriate changes” to comply with President Trump’s order. The order requires all federal documents to ask only about the sex assigned at birth, and prohibits agencies and their documents from promoting “gender ideologies,” including “false claims that men can identify and become women, or vice versa.”
As of April 28th, Form 4473 Buyers are still allowed to mark their gender as “male,” “female,” or “non-binary.” All proposed changes must go through the federal rulemaking process, which includes publication in the Federal Register and a public comment period.
said Erin Parrett, national coordinator for the LGBTQ firearms organization Pink Pistols. independent person The proposed rules would place transgender people in a “catch-22” where any choice they make could expose them to federal criminal charges.
said Patrick Eddington, senior fellow for homeland security and civil liberties at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. independent person “It’s very clear [Trump’s team] We want to collect data on individuals who don’t fit into the regime’s ideas about men and women… [creating] the de facto registration of people by gender identity; ”
He also said the threat of incarceration is likely to deter many transgender people from purchasing firearms, which is their constitutional right. “You’re talking about giving ATF agents and U.S. attorneys a lot of latitude to essentially claim that someone has made a false statement about their status. What they’re trying to do with this policy is to chill constitutionally compliant firearm purchases by individuals who they know are at high risk of violence. So this is a harmful proposal on many levels.”
Firearm transaction records are kept by gun dealers, not the federal government, and federal law prohibits a central, searchable registry of gun owners, but some advocates argue that requiring transgender buyers to self-identify could allow authorities to single them out and target them.
There is no indication that the ATF is inspecting the records of gun dealers, but the Trump administration has reported that it is moving to expand surveillance by the Department of Homeland Security, including using smartphone location data from commercial brokers and automatic license plate recognition cameras. independent person.
Ironically, Parrett noted that Form 4473 was updated during President Trump’s first term to include a “non-binary” option when asking for the gender of gun buyers, which “the Trump administration did not object to at the time or at any point before leaving office in January 2021.”
Source: Metro Weekly – www.metroweekly.com
