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2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Today, I'm embracing the second amendment. [View all]friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)51. And, more to the point- "Pink Pistols: LGBT Gun Owners Unite in Arming Gay Community"
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/pink-pistols-lgbt-gun-owners-unite-in-arming-gay-community-20160628#
I totally smoked that punk!" I thought to myself, after pulling off a few well-placed rounds 30 or so in the target's chest, plus a few more in his head. I felt good, and not just for my excellent aim. Guns have never appealed to me, and I've had little exposure to them. But I felt confident in my teacher, Jeff Bloovman, a Philadelphia gun instructor and a member of the Pink Pistols, an LGBT group based around the belief that guns can go a long way in combating homophobia. But here, holding my own against the Glock 34's concussive revolt, I felt was it imperviousness? Was I untouchable? Was I taller? Whatever it was, it was exhilarating, and not nearly as frightening as I had imagined.
This, of course, is a large part of the Pink Pistol's mission: to get LGBT people more comfortable with firearms and encourage them to fight hate crimes with bullets or at least the threat of them. A small, loosely organized group of a few dozen chapters scattered across the states and Canada, including Toronto, San Francisco and Charleston, South Carolina, the Pink Pistols' membership has climbed from around 1,500 earlier this month to about 6,500 since the June day Omar Mateen attacked the Pulse nightclub, turning the dance floor into a killing field and crashing together two culture war battlegrounds that rarely converge: gays and guns. While the majority of LGBT people seem to be calling for more regulation, Pink Pistols and their allies are hunkering down and taking up arms, banding together under the group's motto, a confrontational warning to potential gay-bashers: "Pick on someone your own caliber."
The Pink Pistols formed around 2000, after gay journalist Jonathan Rauch still outraged by Matthew Shepard's 1998 murder, and knowing gay men who stopped attacks with guns published an article on Salon. "[Gays] should set up Pink Pistols task forces, sponsor shooting courses and help homosexuals get licensed to carry," he wrote, noting that they should do it in a way to garner as much publicity as possible. And, as an added bonus to self-protection, Pink Pistols could erode tenacious stereotypes, challenging the image of cringing weakness, especially for those who internalized it. "Pink pistols," he wrote, "would do far more for the self-esteem of the next generation of gay men and women than any number of hate-crime laws or anti-discrimination statutes."
Rauch went on: "If it became widely known that homosexuals carry guns and know how to use them, not many bullets would need to be fired. In fact, not all that many gay people would need to carry guns, as long as gay-bashers couldn't tell which ones did." Just knowing that a gay person could have a gun would deter a potential attacker. As Rauch has conceded, same-sex marriage, the end of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and other milestones have empowered LGBT people, but it remains that anti-gay attacks, like anti-American attacks, can be visited upon us at anytime. (Rauch even used the word "low-level terrorism" to describe homophobic attacks like the one that ended Matthew Shepherd's life.) LGBT people know that each new space needs to be navigated delicately, lest our mere existence enrage some homophobe. Now, with Omar Mateen, Americans are all too aware how anti-gay violence can explode randomly, terrifyingly, and scar more than just LGBT people.
This, of course, is a large part of the Pink Pistol's mission: to get LGBT people more comfortable with firearms and encourage them to fight hate crimes with bullets or at least the threat of them. A small, loosely organized group of a few dozen chapters scattered across the states and Canada, including Toronto, San Francisco and Charleston, South Carolina, the Pink Pistols' membership has climbed from around 1,500 earlier this month to about 6,500 since the June day Omar Mateen attacked the Pulse nightclub, turning the dance floor into a killing field and crashing together two culture war battlegrounds that rarely converge: gays and guns. While the majority of LGBT people seem to be calling for more regulation, Pink Pistols and their allies are hunkering down and taking up arms, banding together under the group's motto, a confrontational warning to potential gay-bashers: "Pick on someone your own caliber."
The Pink Pistols formed around 2000, after gay journalist Jonathan Rauch still outraged by Matthew Shepard's 1998 murder, and knowing gay men who stopped attacks with guns published an article on Salon. "[Gays] should set up Pink Pistols task forces, sponsor shooting courses and help homosexuals get licensed to carry," he wrote, noting that they should do it in a way to garner as much publicity as possible. And, as an added bonus to self-protection, Pink Pistols could erode tenacious stereotypes, challenging the image of cringing weakness, especially for those who internalized it. "Pink pistols," he wrote, "would do far more for the self-esteem of the next generation of gay men and women than any number of hate-crime laws or anti-discrimination statutes."
Rauch went on: "If it became widely known that homosexuals carry guns and know how to use them, not many bullets would need to be fired. In fact, not all that many gay people would need to carry guns, as long as gay-bashers couldn't tell which ones did." Just knowing that a gay person could have a gun would deter a potential attacker. As Rauch has conceded, same-sex marriage, the end of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and other milestones have empowered LGBT people, but it remains that anti-gay attacks, like anti-American attacks, can be visited upon us at anytime. (Rauch even used the word "low-level terrorism" to describe homophobic attacks like the one that ended Matthew Shepherd's life.) LGBT people know that each new space needs to be navigated delicately, lest our mere existence enrage some homophobe. Now, with Omar Mateen, Americans are all too aware how anti-gay violence can explode randomly, terrifyingly, and scar more than just LGBT people.
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it can take up to 4 months to get a carry permit and there are a lot of gotchas
HoneyBadger
Dec 2016
#44
A 12 gauge shotgun is simultaneously the easiest and the most intimidating weapon for a beginner
HoneyBadger
Dec 2016
#41
If you're not putting us on... prepare for a gunshot to be WAY louder than you'd expect. Beyond that
dionysus
Dec 2016
#23
If enough of you - and lots of straight and gay black and brown and female people, too - get guns
EffieBlack
Dec 2016
#13
In that case is using concerns about guns in urban environments against guns in suburban environment
HoneyBadger
Dec 2016
#61
Injecting "concerns" about "gun violence in Chicago" into a discussion about a gay person
EffieBlack
Dec 2016
#62
Most of the people killing or being killed in Chicago probably don't have many useful skills.
Ace Rothstein
Jan 2017
#152
omfg, the melodrama.. jesus christ. He's gonna be a dud but he's not firing up the ovens, get a grip
dionysus
Dec 2016
#20
The fact that YOU don't feel fear doesn't mean that other, more vulnerable people aren't afraid
EffieBlack
Jan 2017
#131
I agree. I remember the same shit with bush... when i was younger the doomsday
dionysus
Jan 2017
#111
I saw it with bush for 8 years.. the who actually started wars and was reaponsible
dionysus
Jan 2017
#116
Do not divulge your anti-trump sentiments to range personnel or others with guns.
Paladin
Dec 2016
#26
You probably have more reason to arm up than majority of gun nuts -- bigoted white wingers -- but
Hoyt
Dec 2016
#27
I surely understand your feelings. We haven't done anything yet, giving this a chance
RKP5637
Dec 2016
#28
Fuck that "shame on you" horseshit- violent homophobia is a real thing, and empty platitudes won't..
friendly_iconoclast
Dec 2016
#49
And, more to the point- "Pink Pistols: LGBT Gun Owners Unite in Arming Gay Community"
friendly_iconoclast
Dec 2016
#51
And what knucledraggers would that be, exactly? Gun owners, or merely the white subset thereof?
friendly_iconoclast
Dec 2016
#86
I take it you were not aware that the author of "Negroes With Guns" looked like this...
friendly_iconoclast
Dec 2016
#87
Are you saying thatbsunurban whitw people should exercise their rigjts to have a firearm, for
dionysus
Jan 2017
#119
One "privilege" white GLBTQ people enjoy: Having to worrry about antigay violence.
friendly_iconoclast
Dec 2016
#88
The OP expresses genuine fear for his and his loved one's safety and you play Oppression Olympics?
friendly_iconoclast
Jan 2017
#93
I know. The friggin OP is scared, and this guy busts in stopping just short of
dionysus
Jan 2017
#120
Relax and have fun, those are nice pistols, I own an old Glock 17, but envy you your newer version
braddy
Dec 2016
#35
No. That would be *exactly* what the RW would want him and his husband to do
friendly_iconoclast
Dec 2016
#48
Oppressed minorities *have* armed themselves: Pink Pistols (and the Deacons for Defense And Justice)
friendly_iconoclast
Dec 2016
#52
Perhaps- but it's the OP's decision as to whether he wishes to embrace nonviolence or not
friendly_iconoclast
Jan 2017
#94
Are you under the impression that Texas is the only state with concealed-carry colleges?
Paladin
Dec 2016
#74
A long gun is like a desktop computer, more powerful, but not the most convenient
HoneyBadger
Dec 2016
#72
A shotgun is the ideal home defense weapon if you are home and it is behind the door
HoneyBadger
Jan 2017
#146
At my place in maine i can just walk out to woods and practise with a 22, its
dionysus
Jan 2017
#117
There is no reality in believing the 2nd Amendment is going to protect you from the Government.
bullimiami
Jan 2017
#129
It doesn't take the 1st, just the local SWAT, and you're already outgunned.
bullimiami
Jan 2017
#136
How many cops have to be killed across the nation before people stop becoming police officers?
Calista241
Jan 2017
#140
What is interesting about silencers is that not only are they legal in many European countries
HoneyBadger
Jan 2017
#158
Every week guns saves lives, but you do not hear about it because it is a deterrent
HoneyBadger
Jan 2017
#161