Pro-Gay and Pro-Guns?
This post was submitted by TNG reader Amy, who maintains her own blog Appetite for Equal Rights.
Does anyone else think, "WTF?"
I began to grow increasingly nervous as I read through the article in The Washington Independent, entitled “Pro-Gun Gay Groups Take Aim at Hate Crimes Bill.” Pro-gun gay groups? Yep, they exist. They exist to perpetuate the belief that an appropriate and effective response to hate crimes is to encourage GLBTQ people to arm themselves with guns. The Independent article highlighted a couple of organizations that promote this idea, one of them being The Pink Pistols, whose website states:
“We are dedicated to the legal, safe, and responsible use of firearms for self-defense of the sexual-minority community. We no longer believe it is the right of those who hate and fear gay, lesbian, bi, trans, or polyamorous persons to use us as targets for their rage. Self-defense is our RIGHT.”
Granted, I will admit that most people won’t mess with someone who is holding a gun. But what happens when the haters get guns themselves? Bullets will be flying left and right, and ultimately, while people fall dead on both sides, an even deeper division will emerge between the oppressed and the oppressors.
I feel that the most appropriate thing to do right now is to quote Martin Luther King, Jr.:
“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.”
Though this pro-gay pro-gun movement is small, it can be dangerous. Many GLBTQ people, especially youth, are picking up guns out of frustration and anger, and I truly fear for the future as this movement expands. I want to urge all gay rights activists to take a non-violent stance. The hate crime rate is horrifyingly high, but there are better ways to fight it. We do not need to sink to the level of the haters.
Please take a few minutes to contact the Pink Pistols (admin@pinkpistols.org) and GOProud (info@goproud.org), both pro-gay pro-gun organizations. Say anything to convey your opposition to this, even if it’s simply the above Martin Luther King, Jr. quote. I also encourage you to contact GLBT rights organizations and give them a nudge to do something about this. You can find a list of major organizations to contact in my blog, Appetite for Equal Rights. Encourage these organizations to publicly denounce the use of violence as a way of fighting hatred. Most importantly, make a vow to yourself that no matter how frustrated and pissed off you might get, you will always refrain from picking up a gun. Look for the answer somewhere else.
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Thanks for a thoughtful (and thought-provoking) piece.
Personally, I’m sort of ambivalent on this issue.
In general I think guns do a lot more harm to our society than good.
But if a law-abiding gay person is fearing for his/her safety and decides to learn how to use a gun, buys one legally and carries it for self defense — is it fair to call that “violence?”
Presumably the gun won’t be used unless the gun-carrier is attacked. And then doesn’t he/she have the right to self-defense? If he wounds or kills someone defending his own life, isn’t that justified?
Is defending yourself “sinking to the level of the haters?” I would say no.
If I decided to attack someone on the street, unprovoked, I would expect that person to defend him/herself, and in so doing is NOT “sinking to my level.”
So, wait a minute – the solution to hate crimes is to continue to let LGBT people be unarmed targets? Do you really think that will work? If so, I pity your naïveté.
Traditionally, it is a losing proposition in the US to restrict rights. One of the reasons there has been some progress in the area of same-sex marriage is that it has been successfully framed as expanding personal liberty. Taking away a person’s right to defend himself is precisely the opposite.
If you’re shooting someone, that’s violence.
I do believe in the right for people to arm themselves as they feel necessary, but only as they feel necessary. I believe in higher gun control laws and more gun control education. Do I think that the proper way for people to retaliate against hate crimes is to threaten with guns? No.
I don’t think guns are the answer at all, and I do believe that gays carrying guns is stooping to a level below what we’re fighting for. Theright to bear arms is something that should extend to ALL AMERICAN CITIZENS, just like marriage. But the right to kill for no legitimate reason isn’t something that extends to ANY AMERICAN CITIZEN, regardless of orientation or anything else. I think gays retaliating with guns, though it’s a comforting thought, is not something to be considered. It will give us a victory for a brief moment, but only for a brief moment. Murder for murder is still murder, and it will only serve to make members of the LGBTQ community feel as though we stooped to the haters’ level.
It’s not a question of not allowing gays to arm themselves. It’s a question of morality as a whole. EVERYONE should be allowed to arm themselves as they see fit. But fighting fire with fire solves nothing. Don’t arm yourselves because THEY’RE doing it. Try to beat them at their own game by rising above.
This isn’t about gun control. This is about a greater meaning that no one seems to be acknowledging. The right for queers to fight back. I don’t think that should involve guns. It should involve something so much more than that. An eye for an eye is good–but an eye for something more is much better.
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