Will Ainsworth blaming transgender people for mass shootings a political stunt, Alabama advocacy group says
Alabama Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth posted on social media that Wednesday’s deadly shooting in Minneapolis is an example that public acceptance of transgender people has caused a rise in mass murders.
“The liberal media refuses to recognize the growing link between ‘transgenders’ and mass shootings, but facts are facts,” Ainsworth wrote.
“The sooner everyone accepts that God made men, and God made women, and one can never become the other, the quicker we can lessen these events from happening.”
Ainsworth’s post listed nine mass shootings he said were carried out by transgender people.
“But Rednecks with AR-15’s are the Problem,” his post concluded.
The latest on the list happened Wednesday.
Two children were shot to death while they were praying and 17 others were injured by gunfire at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis.
Authorities say the suspect, Robin Westman, 23, died of a self-inflicted gunshot after firing a rifle through the windows of the church at the children in the pews.
FBI Director Kash Patel said Westman “was a male born as Robert Westman.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey condemned anyone who would use the shooting to villainize the transgender community.
In 2020, a judge approved a petition, signed by Westman’s mother, asking for a name change from Robert to Robin, saying the petitioner “identifies as a female and wants her name to reflect that identification.”
The application was granted when Westman was 17, after a hearing.
The court said the name change was in the best interest of the child because the “minor child identifies as a female wants her name to reflect that identification,” Newsweek reported.
The Alabama Transgender Rights Coalition issued a statement Thursday morning in response to Ainsworth’s tweet.
“Ainsworth’s cherry-picking of shooters based on identity continues a growing trend of partisans attempting to use a tragedy to their advantage.
“Alabama is one of the worst states for gun violence in the nation. This is a systemic problem that takes real work to solve, and Ainsworth seems more interested in continuing to scapegoat one of the most marginalized communities in the United States.
“Two children have died and seventeen have been injured. The bodies haven’t even been buried and a politician in one of the state’s highest offices is already using this tragedy for their own political stunt.”
The coalition’s statement linked to a news report from Reuters that cited several organizations that keep records on mass shootings. They showed most mass shootings are carried out by white men who do not identify as transgender, known as cisgender.
The organizations cited include the Gun Violence Archive, which has recorded 4,400 mass shootings in the last decade, defined as incidents when four or more people are killed or injured by gunfire, not counting the shooter.
Of those, “the number of known suspects in mass shootings which are trans is under 10 for the last decade,” Executive Director Mark Bryant told Reuters.
The ratio was one shooter who is transgender out of every 880 shootings, or 0.11%.
In 2022, Reuters reported on studies that showed about 0.5% of adults in the United States identified as transgender. For those ages 13-17, 1.3% identified as transgender.
“We at ALTRAC understand that this is not a moral failing of white cisgender men as a whole,” the Alabama Transgender Rights Coalition said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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