Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 17:29:42 -0400 From: freematt@coil.com (Matthew Gaylor) Subject: Pink Pistol Gun Clubs- Gay & Lesbian Gun Owners To: freematt@coil.com (Matthew Gaylor)
[Note from Matthew Gaylor: Favorite Quote: "Northern Virginia Pink Pistols members gather at the National Rifle Association's range in Fairfax. T-shirts featuring the group's logo (below) include the warning, "Pick on someone your own caliber." ]
http://www.washingtonblade.com/national/010420d.htm
Grappling with a loaded issue Pink Pistols gun club motto: 'Armed Gays don't get bashed'
Pink Pistols chapters nationwide are attracting a range of members including both Gay and straight gun enthusiasts. (by Clint Steib)
by Will O'Bryan
Gay people are no strangers to violence. There's Matthew Shepard, a Gay Wyoming college student; Brandon Teena, a young transgender from Nebraska; and Arthur "J.R." Warren Jr., a Gay African American man from West Virginia - all well-publicized examples of fatal hate crimes aimed at the sexual minority community. Webster's dictionary may not contain an entry for "Gay-bashing," but its definition is common knowledge.
Jonathan Rauch, an openly Gay senior writer at National Journal magazine, has examined this aspect of contemporary culture in his writing. While he has criticized attempts to use hate crimes laws to curb anti-Gay violence, he has offered another solution.
"Thirty-one states allow all qualified citizens to carry concealed weapons," Rauch wrote for Salon.com in March 2000. "In those states, homosexuals should embark on organized efforts to become comfortable with guns, learn to use them safely and carry them. They should set up Pink Pistols task forces, sponsor shooting courses and help homosexuals get licensed to carry."
Rauch's advice did not fall on deaf ears. Within months, the first chapter of Pink Pistols had formed. Little more than a year after Rauch coined the term, there are 13 chapters across the country using it. According to Colleen Reed, one of the grassroots group's unofficial coordinators at the national level, the chapters are composed of about 150 members.
During her weekly shoots with the Northern Virginia chapter at the National Rifle Association's range in Fairfax, Va., Reed, is a stand-out in her Pink Pistols T-shirt. The shirt is not subtle: A silhouette of a shooter sits inside a large pink triangle, while the logo warns, "Pick on someone your own caliber." Another motto greets visitors to the www.pinkpistols.org Web site: "Armed Gays Don't Get Bashed."
Reed's shirt offers a fairly obvious statement that she, in line with the Pink Pistols mission, is either Gay or Gay friendly. The Pistols specifically use the phrase "alternative sexualities" and Reed herself does not identify as Gay, per se, but as bisexual and polyamorous, the latter being a term used by several Pink Pistols to denote non-monogamous. Regardless of the shirt's implied or perceived message, it does not seem to raise any eyebrows at the NRA range.
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