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Recent reports that the Justice Department is weighing possible new restrictions on gun ownership for transgender people have alarmed gun rights groups and thrust President Donald Trump’s record on the Second Amendment back into the spotlight.
Trump’s views on Americans’ right to bear arms have shifted in his last two-plus decades as a public figure, espousing a complicated — and at times, even contradictory — relationship to the Second Amendment and gun rights advocates who support the president.
Late last week, the National Rifle Association took umbrage at those reports, telling Fox News Digital in a statement that the group “supports the Second Amendment rights of all law-abiding Americans to purchase and use firearms.”
The NRA “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,” it said.
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It is unclear whether the Trump administration will move forward with those restrictions, which Justice Department officials stressed to Fox News Digital last week have not been advanced officially through the department.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt described the remarks as “very preliminary, low-level discussions” at the Justice Department at a press conference Tuesday.
It’s “a policy decision, and it’s far too early” to weigh in on at this juncture, she said.
A source told Fox News Digital last week that DOJ’s discussions about banning transgender people from buying or owning guns have involved the Office of Legal Counsel, which provides legal advice to the executive branch. The source indicated that the DOJ officials are currently weighing a feasible legal framework.
Such discussions would likely extend to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), included under DOJ’s leadership structure, and which has authority over federal rules pertaining to firearms.
On the campaign trail in 2016 and 2024, Trump cast himself as a staunch Second Amendment supporter. His first-term record, however, was mixed. He often sparred with gun rights advocates over ATF policies and his past remarks on universal background checks, especially after mass shootings.
After the Parkland High School shooting in 2018, Trump originally said he would consider raising the minimum age for rifle purchases to 21, and supported “taking the guns first, [and going] through due process second.” He later walked back that claim.
He similarly suggested support for “strong background checks” after other mass shootings, including in El Paso. He declined to pursue such legislation after pressure from the NRA and conservative groups, however.
While seeking his second presidential term, Trump positioned himself as the “most pro-gun president ever.”
This is a shift in Trump’s views on the Second Amendment from earlier decades, which were much more moderate compared to his views before his two elections to the White House.
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In his 2000 book “The America We Deserve,” Trump suggested a ban on so-called “assault weapons,” and supported a waiting period to purchase firearms.
Trump wrote, “Democrats want to confiscate all guns, which is a dumb idea because only the law-abiding citizens would turn in their guns and the bad guys would be the only ones left armed.”
“The Republicans walk [the] NRA line and refuse even limited restrictions.”
As a result, he said, “I generally oppose gun control, but I support the ban on assault weapons and I also support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun.”
“With today’s Internet technology, we should be able to tell within seventy-two hours if a potential gun owner has a record,” he added.
In a separate 2015 book, “Crippled America,” Trump — then with an eye to the Republican presidential primary — embraced a very different view of guns.
He argued that the gun waiting periods he previously endorsed had “accomplished very little” and instead introduced “more government regulation into the situation,” which he implied was unhelpful.
He subsequently described himself in an interview as a “very big Second Amendment person,” and went on to secure the NRA’s endorsement in May 2016. He also won the group’s endorsement in the 2020 and 2024 elections.
The NRA endorsed Trump in May 2024 shortly before he took the stage at the group’s annual meeting in Texas.
There, he urged gun owners to vote, vowing to “roll back” Biden-era gun control policies and otherwise claiming Second Amendment protections were “under siege” under the Biden-Harris administration.
“We’ve got to get gun owners to vote,” Trump told the crowd in Texas at the time. “I think you’re a rebellious bunch. But let’s be rebellious and vote this time.”
Fox News Digital’s Ashley Oliver contributed to this report.
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