The Justice Department is weighing options for limiting the right to own a gun for transgender people.

The interest in targeted gun control follows the Minneapolis Catholic church shooting that left two children dead and injured nearly two dozen others. The shooter was identified as Robin Westman, 23, who was born a male named Robert Westman.

Westman was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

It was the latest in a series of shootings perpetrated by people identifying as transgender, including the March 2023 shooting at Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, and the November 2022 shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Under federal law, someone can be stripped of their right to receive or possess a firearm because they are convicted of a crime, mentally defective, an illegal immigrant, a drug addict or someone subject to a restraining order.

Labelling transgender people as mentally defective would be one way to ban them from owning a firearm.

A Justice Department spokesman said no specific criminal justice proposals have been advanced at this time, but options are being evaluated.

“The DOJ is actively evaluating options to prevent the pattern of violence we have seen from individuals with specific mental health challenges and substance abuse disorders,” the spokesman said.

Mr. Trump has pushed back against some of the transgender rights agenda. He signed executive orders to bar transgender people from serving in the military, prohibit male-born athletes from competing in women’s sports, and require transgender federal prison inmates to be incarcerated in facilities corresponding to their gender at birth.

The added gun-control measure for transgender people garnered support from conservatives who typically oppose restrictions on the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative Turning Point USA, wrote on X: “If you are crazy enough to want to hormonally and surgically ’change your sex,’ you have a mental disorder, and you are too crazy to own a firearm.”

Democrats have argued that focusing on the gender identity of the Minnesota shooter takes away from the tragedy of the situation.

“Anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community or any other community out there has lost their sense of common humanity,” said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat. “We should not be operating out of a place of hate for anyone. We should be operating from a place of our love for kids. Kids died today.”

• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.