http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/the-gun-group-that-wants-to-arm-gay-america-213961 -------------- The Group that Wants to Arm Gay America
What if the Orlando clubgoers had been armed? Pink Pistols wages a battle to get LGBT people to carry.
By Julia Ioffe June 13, 2016
. . .
In the wake of the Orlando shooting, it’s hard to imagine an advocacy group more precisely tuned to the moment than Pink Pistols. . .
The group’s ethos goes back to its founding in 2000, during a different time both for gun rights and gay rights. “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act were still the laws of the land; it was two years after Matthew Shepard was beaten and left to die tied to a Wyoming fence. The Federal Assault Weapons Ban was still in effect; gun sales were half of what they are today.
It was in this environment that Jonathan Rauch, a prominent gay journalist, wrote a column called “Pink Pistols,” from which [the] organization takes its name. Rauch called on gays to band together in “Pink Pistols task forces, sponsor shooting courses and help homosexuals get licensed to carry. And they should do it in a way that gets as much publicity as possible.” The point, Rauch wrote, was to change the image of gays, both in the heterosexual and homosexual universes. “Since time immemorial, weakness has been a defining stereotype of homosexuality,” Rauch wrote. “Think of the words you heard on the school playground: ‘limp-wrist,’ ‘pansy,’ ‘panty-waist,’ ‘fairy.’ No other minority has been so consistently identified with contemptible weakness.”
But if gays carried concealed weapons, he argued, and homophobes didn’t know which gays did and which didn’t, it would drive down attacks on gays, and it would change their self-image from one of weakness to one of empowerment. . . ====
> . . .white-racist cishet masculinity. . .
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The Group that Wants to Arm Gay America
What if the Orlando clubgoers had been armed?
Pink Pistols wages a battle to get LGBT people to carry.
By Julia Ioffe
June 13, 2016
. . .
In the wake of the Orlando shooting, it’s hard to imagine
an advocacy group more precisely tuned to the moment than
Pink Pistols. . .
The group’s ethos goes back to its founding in 2000, during
a different time both for gun rights and gay rights.
“Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act were
still the laws of the land; it was two years after Matthew Shepard
was beaten and left to die tied to a Wyoming fence. The
Federal Assault Weapons Ban was still in effect; gun sales were
half of what they are today.
It was in this environment that Jonathan Rauch, a prominent gay
journalist, wrote a column called “Pink Pistols,” from which [the]
organization takes its name. Rauch called on gays to band together in
“Pink Pistols task forces, sponsor shooting courses and help homosexuals
get licensed to carry. And they should do it in a way that gets as
much publicity as possible.” The point, Rauch wrote, was to change
the image of gays, both in the heterosexual and homosexual universes.
“Since time immemorial, weakness has been a defining stereotype of
homosexuality,” Rauch wrote. “Think of the words you heard on the
school playground: ‘limp-wrist,’ ‘pansy,’ ‘panty-waist,’ ‘fairy.’
No other minority has been so consistently identified with contemptible
weakness.”
But if gays carried concealed weapons, he argued, and homophobes
didn’t know which gays did and which didn’t, it would drive down
attacks on gays, and it would change their self-image from one of
weakness to one of empowerment. . .
====
YMMV.