This morning I encountered an article entitled Gay gun activists: Growing LGBT push to support the Second Amendment at msnbc.com. Sorry, foxnews.com. It starts with Top Shot winner Chris Cheng revealing that no one in the gun world gave a damn that he’s gay. Writer Hollie McKay’s then pays a visit to Gwen Patton. The Pink Pistols’ pistolero defends LGBT gun owners’ right to defend themselves by force of arms – despite the supposedly tolerant left’s intolerance for anyone opposing civilian disarmament. “Some think of us as traitors,” Gwen explained. “But at the end of the day, it’s about recognizing that the government shouldn’t be taking our rights away – our rights to be armed, and our rights to be happy and with the person we love.” Rather than leaving it at that, McKay turns to the Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence to add some “balance.” Check this out . . .
Of course the push for concealed carry has may [sic] opponents. Ladd Everitt, communications director for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said that hate crime is an issue our federal government has taken very seriously, pointing out the Hate Crimes Prevention Act passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in 2009.
Why “of course”? Of course as in “we all know there are anti-gun extremists who oppose Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms”? Or “of course” as in “there are lots of good reasons why members of the LGBT community shouldn’t be armed?” And what’s up with the word “many”? How many people oppose the “push” for concealed carry? Some? Most? Methinks Ms. McKay’s bias is showing. But nothing like this . . .
“The law contains explicit protections for members of the LGBT community,” he said. “If groups like Pink Pistols are feeling targeted or under threat, it might be from members of their own community in the pro-gun movement.”
Now that makes my blood boil. First, Everitt uses the word “feel” to suggest that LGBT Americans aren’t really targeted or under threat. While the right to keep and bear arms isn’t based on “feelings,” and I’m not enamored by the FBI’s “hate crimes” classification, McKay’s article points out what anyone with common sense already knows: LGBT Americans are in the crosshairs for criminal violence.
According to FBI Hate Crime Statistics, sexual orientation is the second largest motivator for bias crimes in the United States, second to racial bias, and far exceeding the number of religious or ethnically-spurred hate crimes.
What’s worse – far worse – is Everitt’s suggestion that the “pro-gun movement” are violent homophobes. Everitt’s been around the pro-gun movement long enough to know that Second Amendment supporters believe that all Americans have the right to keep and bear arms – regardless of their race, color, sexual orientation or creed. As a quick look at our “I am a gun owner” Facebook gallery reveals.
As I’ve said before, the antis lack anything remotely resembling a moral compass. They lie, mischaracterize, emotionally manipulate and smear good people in their endless pursuit of statist control. Shame on Ladd Everitt. A concept with which he is no doubt totally unfamiliar.
Good piece. We as gun owners need to remove that stigma that we are OFWG WASPs only. Regardless of the veracity of that stigma, it is one that is frequently encountered. Writing an article about this shows both your personal stance and TTAG’s stance on the issue, and I applaud you for it.
+1
I’d also like to see a rebuttal from the Pink Pistols.
Working on it, Bear. 🙂
However, “we” still tend to stigmatize and stereotype OFWGs, don’t we?
Speaking as an OFWG NRA Benefactor Army vet, I do not personally care about your color, creed, sexual orientation, age, size, hair style, skin piercings, tattoos, or whatever other external/cultural qualities you may have. My sole criteria is where you stand on the basic human right of self-defense and the 2nd Amendment, and how well you understand the definition of “shall not be infringed”.
I would appreciate your returning the courtesy.
God, Ladd Everitt makes my BLOOD BOIL so much right now. I want to punch that guy in the face for telling me, as a gay man, that I don’t have the right to defend myself and that LAWS are supposed to somehow protect me.
If it makes you feel better, by the logic present in his statement, he also slushy argue for more gun laws because we already have laws against murder…
+1000 for the honest anger of a sane adult in the face of authoritarian crap. And once again this demonstrates that the difference between free adults and collectivist sheep is so, so much more important than any superficial crap like the color of our skin, whether our genitals are innies or outies, or whether we prefer on our romantic partners to have innies or outies.
I’m with you 1000% on that, friend. My blood pressure is spiking.
A Light Anti-tank Weapon System might actually help protect you. Legislation, not so much.
As I’ve said before, there is no coexisting with folks like Ladd. Ladd has made the decision for us in deciding he won’t coexist with anyone that disagrees with his view on guns. All his rage, hatred and irrationality is a powder keg looking for some outlet for satisfaction, either in the form of physical violence or encouraging others to physical violence. Another reason I go armed.
As I understand it, the Pink Pistols were founded in San Francisco to publicize the fact that gays there are often targets of homophobic violence but are precluded by a long standing “no issue” policy applied by both the County Sheriff and the SFPD Chief from carrying firearms for self defense. If the City could ban all guns, it would.
@RF, can you reach out to Pick Pistols and see if they may have a rebuttal you can post? Me thinks they will feel differently than what that author said given past posts on TTAG.
Grew up in California with very progressive (read: accepting) parents. Many family friends were homosexual, all great people. I am a Conservative Christian Republican gun owning NRA member married to a wife who hails from a family composed largely of the same, and they are equally accepting of those with different sexual orientations then themselves. There are even members of our family that are openly gay and are no less loved or accepted for it. Oh, and they’re gun owners, one’s an LEO, just like her father. Based off my experience, coming from a progressive background and living among a conservative family, and never seeing any homophobic or hate based fear of homosexuals on either side, I’m going to say that labeling a large portion of gun owners as homophobic is simply a ploy to direct more anger and distrust at a group of people a certain portion of the population doesn’t understand (Kinda like something homophobes might use, huh?), and while there may be gun owners who are indeed homophobes, they are a very, very small segment of our population and only noticed due to the the disgust they incur. Not a good line of attack, and an ignorant and assume one as well.
Oh, and my progressive parents are also gun owners. From California. Go figure.
I’m a straight, ultra-right wing gun owner who supports the rights of gay people. Strongly. Because they’re people first and foremost, and besides, if they don’t have rights, I don’t either.
Still, I’m kinda confused about the two hot button gay issues — marriage and the military. Those are the two things that most straight people choose to avoid. 🙂
Well, all I have to say about the military issue is, don’t ask don’t tell worked very well. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
On the marriage issue, marriage is between opposite sexes. It is not a rights issue it is a simple definition of things. Mix sugar, eggs, oil, vanilla, self rising flour and bake in a pan for 40 minutes. Let it cool then cover with chocolate icing. What do you have? Meat loaf? No. You have to have meat to make a meat loaf. You have to have a man and a woman to make a marriage.
So, no room for a civil union? Not even for consideration of the legal issues all couples have?
if marriage is “not a rights issue” as you claim, then eliminate all the special legal rights and special legal status granted to married couples.
Yeah, DATD worked great, as long as gays kept their mouth shut and never ever got caught doing anything with their partner that heteros would get a high-five for.
Marriage is between a man and his women. Or was it a man and his concubines? Or was it a white man and a white woman? Seems the definition isn’t as static as you believe it to be. Either way, the bottom line is that we’ve attached certain privileges, including some nice tax incentives, to marriage, and to bar an entire class of people on such arbitrary reasons is ludicrous in a supposedly “free” society.
Dan, gays have always had the legal right to get married and sine have even exercised it. Rock Hudson is the must famous example I can think of. The point is that the debate about gay marriage is actually about changing the definition of marriage to include a different type of union, despite the language it has been couched in.
Marcus, how free would you feel if you were told you have the right to marry, but the person you’d actually choose to marry is forever out of bounds? This argument is in the same form as the argument that the right to keep and bear arms is not infringed as long as you have the right to own one kind of gun. Would you feel free if you could own one single shot .22LR as your right to keep and bear arms?
I don’t think the government, state or fed, should have anything to do with marriage whatsoever in the first place. The bundle of legal rights and privileges a couple gets from the gov’t should be called a “civil union” or whatever the heck phrase makes sense other than “marriage,” and this should be available to any two adults. It should be the ONLY thing available from the gov’t. If you want to be “married,” straight, gay, or whatever, then this is a religious or spiritual or purely ceremonial affair and you do it on your own through your church or secularly or skip the ceremony and just have a big party or whatever / however the heck you want. But it’s none of the government’s business and it shouldn’t be involved in “marriage” for anybody.
I’m an extremely right-wing independent constitutional conservative (formerly a registered Republican) and see no reason why the 2nd Amendment would not apply to homosexuals.
Throughout history tyrants and their minions have grouped and labeled people. A tyrant cannot motivate followers without claiming to one group that they are special and that another group is their enemy. The leftist are constantly telling the gays that conservatives are their enemy, but in reality, from my experience, most conservatives could care less about sexual orientation. The left does not use gays as attack dogs because of gay rights, they use them to attack their political foes. The left does not like the 2nd amendment, so they are trying to motivate their attack dogs to assault gun owners.
I want to believe you, but considering the number of states that passed amendments banning gay marriage the argument that conservatives don’t care if you’re gay just doesn’t hold water.
I want to believe you, but considering the number of states that passed amendments banning gay marriage the argument that conservatives don’t care if you’re gay just doesn’t hold water.
Do you know why? Do you even want to know why?
People voting to protect the definition of marriage believe that it is a religious institution, ordained by God, as a union between one man and one woman. The State forcing a re-definition of marriage is therefore an infringement upon their religious belief. The reason that the issue is being addressed at the ballot box is in direct response to unelected, unaccountable judges legislating that re-definition of marriage from the judicial bench.
The vast majority of conservatives don’t care who’s sleeping with whom, who is in a relationship with whom, who is living with whom, etc. The problem is that there is a very small but very vocal, and very politically active group of militant homosexuals who are not content with “live and let live”. Instead, they demand to have the State force society to recognize and condone their lifestyle. (Contrast that with conservatives, who believe that, while society should leave them alone to live as they please, society is under no obligation to condone anything.)
There is a valid argument to be made that the nuclear family unit (husband, wife, children) is the most essential element to a healthy society, but quite frankly, heterosexuals are doing a fine enough job of eroding the family unit all on our own. More importantly, conservatives see something deeper: an attack on freedom of conscience.
Ultimately, it is the attack on freedom of conscience that drives conservatives to the polls on social issues such as gay marriage.
Except that changing the legal, secular definition of marriage used for statutory purposes imposes no requirements whatsoever on any religion. If you don’t wish to recognize same sex marriages within your faith, you are completely free to do so, and can refuse to let your members sanctify them in your church.
This is exactly equivalent to divorce in Catholicism. Traditionally, the wider world recognizes it; they don’t. So you can get divorced legally, but the church still considers you married. If you wish to remarry, you can do so legally and be recognized by the state, but the church will not recognize the second marriage.
^^^ I agree with much of what both of you guys said, which is why I feel that gov’t should not be involved in “marriage” AT ALL. See my post above.
In response to Grindstone about states that banned gay marriage or even passed constitutional amendments banning it, I was living in California at the time and remember how surprised people were when it happened. Even the city / county of San Francisco voted to ban gay marriage. Where you’re totally wrong is that the constitutional amendment did NOT pass because of conservatives. You’re choosing to blame that group because of your distaste for that group, but you’re overlooking the reality that the reason it passed was because of overwhelming support from strongly and historically liberal, D-voting groups. African Americans and Latinos (among some others, but these were huge voting blocks for this amendment) voted for the gay marriage ban in extremely high percentages. They are not “conservative” and you would never consider them such, but they still voted this way for social and/or religious purposes.
My experience with most folks in the “conservative” parts of CA and here in WA, especially in the farming areas, is that they are branded “conservatives” but actually tend to be fairly libertarian. The couple dozen of these folks I know well enough in different places in both CA and WA are pretty strongly in the “live and let live” category and don’t care what anyone does as long as they don’t push it on others.
A prime example, I believe, is the fact that both gay marriage and legalized marijuana passed here in WA. WA is actually very much like CA in that the entire state is “conservative” except for the large population center(s). Both states have huge amounts of agriculture outside of those population centers. On total population votes, both states are historically solidly “blue” states. However, gay marriage was banned in CA and okay’d in WA. We do not have nearly the percentage of minority populations that vote pro-D but anti-gay-marriage that CA does, and this is why I think the results were different.
Just saying, don’t only blame the “conservatives.” The number of actual conservatives voting on religious principals isn’t what you think it is when you subtract the “libertarians” who are often lumped into the “conservative” group like I believe you are doing.
“The law contains explicit protections for members of the LGBT community,” he said. ”
Well then, just remember to carry a paper copy of the specific penal codes in your pocket and wave them in your attacker’s face. That should clear that right up.
Methinks he doesn’t understand the different between ‘protection’ and ‘punishment’. Dolt.
Have the relevant statute engraved on the slide.
The NRA needs to bring back a revitalized version of the “I am the NRA” ad series, and maybe get a publicity firm that knows what the heck they’re doing. Of the people I have recently taken to the range, none of them fall into the OFWG category.
I agree with this. I’m a new NRA member and I have to say I don’t fit the right wing mold. I ended up joining after I went to the NRA range in Fairfax VA. I remember my son saying as we left “everyone was really nice. I didn’t expect that”.
I think if the NRA built more ranges open to the public with an education platform they could double their membership.
NRA is not going to put persons with a mental disorder on their poster.
I agree. No one elected to a position.
I work with a gay lady who loves her range time. We’re actually setting up an office meet-up at a local range. The less we, as gun owners, push away people (of all stripes), the more secure we will be in the government recognizing our natural rights.
Two weeks ago, we had a situation at our range, where a Mormon gun group (nametags and ties and all) was shooting right next to a LGBT gun group (lots of different hair colors.)
You know what the most heated exchange was?
…Who got to try my friend’s M1 Garand next. (Including one of the Elders’ 12 year old cousins, who did a ‘happy dance’ after he shot it — under close supervision from his uncle of course.)
Then everyone went to go get BBQ at the same place.
If anything, some new friends were made.
If this guy wants to find out what “gun culture” and “gun groups” are like, he should try a little immersion reporting and see what it’s really like. Because he obviously has no clue.
And why would fact have any place in his reporting?
Yep. It reminds me of something I read once about a Mormon woman who was also a lesbian. She reported that she felt entirely accepted in the Mormon community in Utah. Living in a a bohemian community in New York, however, she received nothing but grief for being a Mormon.
I have -o- fucking sense of humor when it comes to protecting my second amendment rights.
If you want to giggle, go to Cracked or Youtube.
I have a brain. That brain tells me that in a culture war, the way we present ourselves /matters/.
Some of you out there may want to pretend this isn’t reality. Ignorance must be bliss… while you tell poop jokes to your prospective clients at work.
*Note: This reply was to a really stupid comment that apparently got booted.
Good news then. I thought you were in the beginning stages of a stroke.
Ladd Everitt, like any good progressive, is merely projecting his own prejudices and bigotry on the gun community.
Let’s compare that jackwagon’s words with what Chris Cheng has to say (FTA):
P.S. Just pre-ordered Chris’s book on Kindle. Looks like it will be a good read.
I think the vast majority of us would agree that sexual preferences don’t matter. All I care about is your position in the great debates of our time: 9mm v. .45? Glock v. 1911? AR-15 v. Shotgun?
“AR-15 v. Shotgun?”
Or AR vs AK?
AR vs. shotgun for home defense is a popular debate topic.
To quote Kev from Shameless (when talking to a recently-out Mickey at the bar) “Sit down and have a drink, no one cares who you bang…”
In the same series there’s a lot of pro-2A tendencies in the bar scenes. Kermit says “Prepare and prevent rather than repair and repent…”
I’m glad the pro-2A movement is adopting the same strategy.
Ladd Everitt truly is a quack, and has written many stupid things here >LINK<, and in that article’s comments. Look for yourself at the kind of stupidity he’s spewing.
“What’s worse – far worse – is Everitt’s suggestion that the ‘pro-gun movement’ are violent homophobes.”
I agree, I don’t like that suggestion. But I have encountered far too many pro-gun people that are, at least by LGBT standards, homophobic.
And pro-gun people are also very militant (no pun intended) about their beliefs. You can get them violent over statements that are far less scandalous than coming out of the closet. Just watch Facebook and this page for people’s comments and eventually you’ll find comments that prove my point 🙂
Here’s some intentional bait to show you what I mean: I’m pro gun. I want to abolish the NFA and the ATF tax stamp. But I support universal background checks. (I shall now run away.)
And pro-gun people are also very militant (no pun intended) about their beliefs. You can get them violent over statements that are far less scandalous than coming out of the closet. Just watch Facebook and this page for people’s comments and eventually you’ll find comments that prove my point 🙂
Sure, pro-gun people can be very opinionated, and very passionate about their opinions. But there’s one major criterion that dictates how pro-gun people react to an issue: whether or not that issue personally impacts them.
Are there pro-gun people who are homophobic? Sure. Are there pro-gun people who hold strongly held religious beliefs about homosexuality? Sure. Are any of those people going to physically threaten or in any other way interfere with a homosexual person living his life? No. Because how that person lives his life has no impact on pro-gun people, or how they live their lives.
Conservatives are far less inherently violent than progressives. The idea that pro-gun people – typically, freedom-loving people who believe in natural rights, upholding the constitution that protects those rights, being left alone and leaving others alone in life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness – would turn their guns on someone merely for being homosexual is just so much more progressive projection.
” Just watch Facebook and this page for people’s comments and eventually you’ll find comments that prove my point :-)”
Yes, I’ve read Facebook comments, and time after time I see violent comments by the anti-gun crowd. Yes, I see exactly what you mean.
The “violent comments” of the pro-gun crowd that are pointed out, are usually a pathetic and cowardly attempt of others to skew words to have other meaning, and the sentiment “come and take it” is not pro-violence, it is an assertive statement that they will use the force necessary to protect the tools they use to protect themselves and others – Using violence to protect yourself and others is not “being violent” or even “pro-violence.” It’s HAVING BALLS, something lots of people know nothing about!
Anyone who is familiar with the term “troll” knows that you can draw no accurate conclusions from Facebook, or any other inflammatory Internet comments.
Hmm…that must mean Moms Demand Action is one ginormous troll – I find your comment to have a lot of truth to it in this context.
As a gay gun owner, I really encourage minority gun owners to be as vocal as possible when it comes to any conversation revolving around guns or 2A. We are in a really unique position, because we have the ability to communicate with people on the left in a way that most gun owners can’t. People on the left repeat party rhetoric and completely shut off anything the right says. In their minds, there is no possible way they could be wrong, because the right is racist, homophobic, blah blah blah.
Occasionally I run into the extremist liberal who is so stubborn they won’t even give me a chance to present facts to them. Unless those people get robbed at gun point or beaten by police, there is little we can do to save these people.I am passive and not intimidating like many gun owners (it’s true^^^). People almost always say yes when I offer to take them to the gun range. They actually listen to what I am saying when I help them understand a gun is something to be respected, not feared. Don’t give up this amazing opportunity to fight for our rights in a way others can’t. It’s also incredibly rewarding to see the light turn on in someone who previously feared guns.
Exactly. And it should be pointed out that the same rabid liberals, when they become very wealthy and famous surround themselves with armed security. In these instances it is clear these kinds of people are not interested in personal responsibility.
Here’s a little test if he wants to really report on gun groups and get their supposed bias.
He should dress up in drag, and make it really obvious that he’s a guy in drag. And go to a gun range and start asking around, “I’ve had my life threatened, can you teach me how to shoot to protect myself?”
Guaranteed he won’t get a no, unless he’s asking a person headed out the door to a meeting. He might get a lesson, and a recommendation on a couple of good schools to teach better technique, a few firearm recommendations, and possibly get dragged into a .45 or 9mm argument… Seriously. I guarantee most of us gun folk generally care more about what round someone claims is best than who they partner up with in bed.
Brilliant.
And absolutely spot on. And that’s why you’ll never see him do that. He knows that would be the result and it would destroy his narrative.
This isn’t just anger. This is righteous indignation. From ALL the POTG toward a paid propagandist. We have a BIG tent.
Yeah, those hate crime laws will do the trick. /sarc
I’ve found that a fair number of gun control supporters honestly cannot wrap their heads around the fact that people can disobey laws. I recently had a discussion with a guy who thought there was no law prohibiting the mentally incompetent from owning guns. When it was pointed out that there was, he demanded to know, then, how it was possible for the shooters at Virginia Tech, Aurora, and Tucson to buy guns. You could practically hear the gears stripping in his head.
Folks like this guy on the gun control side lie all the time. It’s like how they make the claim about how modern guns are far more “powerful” than guns before. Or the terms like “assault weapon” and “high capacity magazine.” Either they remain willfully ignorant or purposely mislead people, either one of which is bad.
Yeah, no modern military round has the damage capability of civil war Minie round. The only difference modern medicine makes is an almost certain survival of an amputee.
God, guns and gays made this country fabulous.
Hey, Mr. Ladd! The second amendment applies to EVERY American. If groups like Pink Pistols are feeling targeted or under threat, it’s because willfully ignorant groups like YOURS make it their business to deny their right to keep and bear arms! It’s not just hate crimes they need protection from. Criminals don’t stop to ask if you are gay before they rob or assault you or worse…..you pandering jackass.
2 questions:
1) Was that a rehearsal? There is no evidence of an audience.
and B) I don’t have a camera phone. Was the camera held funny or was the image cut to just show the stage? Kind of seems deliberately avoiding showing a MDA type of (non)support,.
>”As I’ve said before, the antis lack anything remotely resembling a moral compass.”
If you want to understand what is really happening with that, you need to google “the noble lie”. Plato first came up with that concept, and today liberals apply it, well, -liberally-. They lie, they know they lie, but they honestly believe it is for a “greater good”. So it’s not that they don’t have a compass, it’s that their compass points in the wrong direction. And that’s a very difficult problem to fix.
Just watched the video. I find it ironic that it was uploaded on May 21, 2011, and I am view # 400. I imagine most of the views came from this post today! Sounds like he is a really successful speaker . . .
When he goes off on the tangent of the NRA and gun manufacturers profiting on gun violence, that’s like saying ER doctors and nurses are out there to profit off of gun violence! The NRA and its 4.5 million members (including me) are not “profiting” off of gun violence and “trafficking” illegal guns into DC. This guy makes me sick . . .
I don’t know Ladd Everitt from squat, but as far as I can tell his “audience” is people strolling by in a park. Nobody in the video is actually listening to his drivel.
One of the ways astroturf groups present themselves is to frame the shots so it looks like their six paid shills are a mob. Cell phone cameras are a wonderful thing when it comes to correcting these misrepresentations.
Ladd is just another example of the unconscious projection seen most often it seems, in progressives, when it comes to dealing with the people of the gun (POTG).
More power to Mr. Ladd, as he’s thus doing plenty of damage to the gun-grabber side all by himself. My guess is that LGBTs, women, POTG of color with any common-sense know Ladd doesn’t speak for them, and they don’t need me white-knighting on their behalf, since they’ve left that reservation, or about to, if they have the power of reason, and intellectual courage not to be a victim already.
And TTAGs long history of articles and forum commentary, and the “evillll NRA’s” latest investment in outstanding role models and videos speaks volumes, in rebuttal, for anyone looking for the truth, about diversty in the belief in individual freedom, via 2A rights, if that person has the ability to confront the “narrative” fronted by anti-gunners and recognizes the echo chamber of the progtarded StateRunMedia™, like MSNBC, for what it is…simple-minded agitprop.
PS: to Chris Cheng: RESPECT.
How could you not want to punch this guy?
http://i.imgur.com/aJ9RD5v.jpg
I’m a shooting instructor who happens to be gay.
Given the choice of being “outed” as gay to a bunch of shooters or a shooter in a cocktail party full of antis, I’ll take the shooters.
The only death threats I’ve ever had are from “peaceful” antis.
How on earth can a gay person demand that they be treated fairly and demand this and that and then be against the second amendment ? Sounds like ‘some people’ want to pick and choose what rights are right.