LGBT gun owners: ‘Armed gays don’t get bashed’ | WBEZ Chigo

Contents:

• PK PISTOLS: LGBT GUN OWNERS UNE ARMG GAY COMMUNY
• GAYS AGAST GUNS: N THE LGBTQ MUNY CURB THE POWER OF THE GUN LOBBY?
• MEET THE GAY LIBERTARIAN GUN NUTS
• GAYS AND GUNS
• GOD, GUNS AND GAYS: THE OLD THIRD RAILS OF POLICS TAKE CENTER STAGE 2020 MPAIGN

PK PISTOLS: LGBT GUN OWNERS UNE ARMG GAY COMMUNY

Meet natnal gay group dited to fightg homophobia wh firepower – and why they thk gay rights and gun rights are a natural f. But I felt nfint my teacher, Jeff Bloovman, a Philalphia gun stctor and a member of the Pk Pistols, an LGBT group based around the belief that guns n go a long way batg homophobia. A small, loosely anized group of a few dozen chapters sttered across the stat and Canada, cludg Toronto, San Francis and Charlton, South Carola, the Pk Pistols’ membership has climbed om around 1, 500 earlier this month to about 6, 500 sce the June day Omar Mateen attacked the Pulse nightclub, turng the dance floor to a killg field and crashg together two culture war battlegrounds that rarely nverge: gays and guns.

While the majory of LGBT people seem to be llg for more regulatn, Pk Pistols and their alli are hunkerg down and takg up arms, bandg together unr the group’s motto, a nontatnal warng to potential gay-bashers: “Pick on someone your own liber. The Pk Pistols formed around 2000, after gay journalist Jonathan Rch – still outraged by Matthew Shepard’s 1998 murr, and knowg gay men who stopped attacks wh guns – published an article on Salon.

GAYS AGAST GUNS: N THE LGBTQ MUNY CURB THE POWER OF THE GUN LOBBY?

“[Gays] should set up Pk Pistols task forc, sponsor shootg urs and help homosexuals get licensed to rry, ” he wrote, notg that they should do a way to garner as much publicy as possible.

MEET THE GAY LIBERTARIAN GUN NUTS

“Pk pistols, ” he wrote, “would do far more for the self-teem of the next generatn of gay men and women than any number of hate-crime laws or anti-discrimatn statut. Rch went on: “If beme wily known that homosexuals rry guns and know how to e them, not many bullets would need to be fired. In fact, not all that many gay people would need to rry guns, as long as gay-bashers uldn’t tell which on did.

” Jt knowg that a gay person uld have a gun would ter a potential attacker.

As Rch has nced, same-sex marriage, the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and other ton have empowered LGBT people, but remas that anti-gay attacks, like anti-Amerin attacks, n be vised upon at anytime. (Rch even ed the word “low-level terrorism” to scribe homophobic attacks like the one that end Matthew Shepherd’s life. ) LGBT people know that each new space needs to be navigated litely, lt our mere existence enrage some homophobe.

GAYS AND GUNS

Now, wh Omar Mateen, Amerins are all too aware how anti-gay vlence n explo randomly, terrifygly, and sr more than jt LGBT people. The mottos of the Pk Pistols say all: “Armed Gays Don’t Get Bashed” and “We Teach Queers to Shoot and We Teach the World We Did It. The motto on their Facebook page stat: “Not gay as happy, but queer as fuck you.

“We regnize that the LGBTQ body is unr attack, It’s always been unr attack, ” said John Grwiler, one of the prcipal anizers of Gays Agast Guns (GAG) a New York-based “clive direct actn group of LGBTQ people and their alli mted to nonvlently breakg the gun dtry’s cha of ath. That’s not a world I want to live or a world we, Gays Agast Guns, want to support. “People are adults, they n make their own choic, But we’re not gog to get volved a turf war between Pk Pistols and Gays Agast Guns, ” said Grwiler.

GOD, GUNS AND GAYS: THE OLD THIRD RAILS OF POLICS TAKE CENTER STAGE 2020 MPAIGN

gay.