Senior Justice Department officials have held internal deliberations in recent days over potentially issuing a rule that could restrict transgender individuals from being able to own firearms, two officials familiar with the discussions confirmed Thursday to ABC News.

NOTE: The video is from a previous report.

The policy discussions, which are believed to be in their early stages and driven in part by chatter in right-wing media, follow last week's Minneapolis Catholic church shooting that the FBI has said was carried out by a transgender woman .

Such a proposal could face significant pushback not only from civil rights groups but from gun rights organizations, which have historically been resistant to the issuance of any regulations restricting people's access to firearms.

There

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