Comment on FR Doc # 2026-08932

The Second Amendment applies to all Americans, including transgender and non-binary Americans. Nothing in federal law makes it illegal to be transgender or non-binary, which means nothing in federal law strips them of the right to purchase, keep, and bear arms. This new directive from ATF, stating that firearm purchasers shall identify themselves by their biological sex on the Firearm Transaction Record - Form 4473, forces lawful gun purchasers into an impossible bind. A transgender woman who writes ‘female’ on her Form 4473 risks being accused of providing false identifying information under the President’s order. If she instead writes ‘male,’ she risks being accused of providing identifying information that no longer matches the appearance of her lived identity, undermining the form’s stated purpose of helping law enforcement identify a purchaser. That Catch-22 is not a safety measure. It is a trap. This contradiction is especially ironic given that the ATF itself added a ‘non-binary’ option to the Form 4473 in December 2019, during President Trump’s first term. The Trump administration raised no objection at the time, or at any point before he left office in January 2021. This sudden reversal is not about policy consistency; it is about political pandering. The federal government does not get to play ‘gotcha’ with constitutional rights. Creating a paperwork contradiction designed to intimidate a minority group out of exercising a fundamental right raises serious equal-protection and due-process concerns. If the government creates conditions where the only safe option for a transgender or non-binary person is to forego gun ownership entirely, that is not regulation; that is disenfranchisement disguised as regulation. Whether the ATF’s Firearm Transaction Record - Form 4473 can survive post-Bruen constitutional scrutiny is an open question. What is not in question is that the Constitution does not permit the federal government to target a class of citizens for second-tier rights. Operation Blazing Sword - Pink Pistols will continue to oppose any policy that attempts to do so. Operation Blazing Sword, Inc. is a grassroots 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to helping queer people become responsible firearm owners by maintaining a database of over 1,900 queer-friendly volunteer firearm educators located in every state of the USA. It also submits legal briefs (amicus curiae) to protect the rights of not just queer people, but all peaceable citizens, to have access to the most effective tools for self-defense. www.blazingsword.org Pink Pistols, a division of Operation Blazing Sword, is dedicated to the legal, safe, and responsible use of firearms for self-defense of the gender and sexual minority community. www.pinkpistols.org Media Contact: Ms. Erin Palette, 386-401-0386 (text), erin@blazingsword.org See attached file(s)