On her first shot: “It was the first moment in my life that I felt like I wouldn’t have to live in fear anymore, that I’d be able to protect myself and my family.”
–LGBT community member Elizabeth Southern
Not all gays are sticking their heads in the sand with regards to taking prudent, proactive steps to protect themselves from America’s criminal class. These forward-thinking LGBT community members aren’t relying on fears and emotions to drive their decision-making on acquiring the most effective means of self-defense available to them. Instead, they are gunning up and empowering themselves with training. They understand that armed gays don’t get bashed – and that the only thing that stops a bad person with evil in their heart is a good guy (or gal) with a gun.
The LA Times can’t quite wrap their minds around the whole context of gays embracing empowerment, self-defense and rugged independence. The LA Times reports:
Going against the grain after Orlando shooting, LGBT group embraces guns
Jonathan Fischer is never sure who’s going to be more surprised when he, as he likes to put it, comes out of the gun closet — the gun aficionados who find out he’s gay or the gay friends who find out he likes shooting guns.
When the 38-year-old television editor showed up last month to a defensive handgun class near Piru with a Glock 27 pistol on his hip, he wore a T-shirt sporting a rainbow-colored AK-47. His “gay-K-47,” he said.
In the days after 49 people were fatally shot at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., this summer, Fischer wanted to do something to make his community safer. So he started the West Hollywood chapter of the Pink Pistols — a loosely organized, national LGBT gun group.
“If someone was to try and break into my home, and especially if someone were armed, I don’t want to fight back with a kitchen knife,” Fischer said. “And I don’t think that’s extremist or crazy.”
It’s not extremist or crazy. It’s prudent. It’s wise. It’s common sense. It’s also proactive!
The LA Times also mentions how Pink Pistols has grown dramatically since the Orlando Muslim terror attack, but that can’t do that without quoting a true radical extremist.
Interest in the Pink Pistols has increased since the Orlando attack, with new chapters springing up across the country, including the West Hollywood chapter and another one in North Hollywood. There was such an outpouring of support from firearms trainers, many of them straight, that the Pink Pistols’ website now has a map listing LGBT-friendly firearms instructors in every state.
The week of the attack, signs depicting a rainbow-colored Gadsden flag and the hashtag #ShootBack appeared in West Hollywood, where an estimated 46% of the population identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. City officials were outraged.
“Even during our heightened days of civil disobedience and protest, we have only advocated peaceful means, never arming ourselves and retaliating with violence,” said City Councilman John Duran, who is gay.
What sort of person embraces non-violence in the face of an unlawful violent attack with deadly force?
Coward.
noun
1. a person who lacks courage in facing danger, difficulty, opposition, pain, etc.; a timid or easily intimidated person.
From Dictionary.com.
Rational, intelligent people understand the use of force is a last resort. Nobody wants to use deadly force, but at the same time responsible people don’t shirk their responsibility to their loved ones.
It all came down to this for Elizabeth Southern:
Wearing a pink T-shirt and pink earplugs, with the word “Blessed” tattooed on her wrist, Southern was shooting only for the second time. The 25-year-old Downey resident is bisexual, African American and a woman — and likely to experience discrimination because of all three factors, she said.
Southern joined the Pink Pistols this summer because she was a recent victim of domestic violence and had to get a restraining order against a former boyfriend who threatened to kill her and her young son. She attended the West Hollywood Pink Pistols’ first group shooting event in Sylmar in July. The first time she pulled the trigger, she broke down crying.
“It was the first moment in my life that I felt like I wouldn’t have to live in fear anymore, that I’d be able to protect myself and my family,” Southern said. “I felt an enormous sense of relief.”
Last month, she bought her first gun.
She’s not alone.
I wish more papers would pick this story up.
What do they say?
Wish in one hand……..