nicki
08-20-2008, 12:38 PM
August 20, 2008
AN UNLIKELY ALLIANCE OF GUNS AND GAY RIGHTS
Pink Pistols Tout Right to Bear Arms As Self Defense Against Hate Attacks
By Rebecca Beyer
Daily Journal Staff Writer
***** SAN FRANCISCO
***** ***** ***** Since its founding in 2000, Pink Pistols has become an active participant in the national debate over gun control. It has opposed gun restrictions nearly across the board and filed amicus briefs in some of the most important firearms litigation in the nation, including June's landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that found an individual right to bear arms.
***** The Pink Pistols' cause was highlighted that same month when an anonymous gay man and the National Rifle Association sued the San Francisco Housing Authority. The suit claims the authority's lease, which bans residents from possessing firearms or other weapons, violates the residents' Second Amendment rights and puts the anonymous gay plaintiff at risk: if he can't have a firearm, he can't protect himself from violence directed at him because of his sexuality.
***** ********** The group that would become Pink Pistols got its start at a ranch outside of Boston, when a gay man invited a couple of friends to fire off a few rounds. A couple of weeks later, that man, Doug Krick, happened to read an article in Salon that called upon the gay community to stave off anti-gay violence by arming itself - and declaring itself armed to the world. The writer called his theoretical movement "Pink Pistols." Krick asked for permission to use the name, and a gay gun rights group was born.
***** The group Krick began has been loosely replicated 55 times in 33 states and three countries. California has chapters in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Alameda, Orange County, Sacramento, San Jose, and San Diego.
***** Along the way, the Pink Pistols have formed an unlikely alliance with the NRA - generally considered a bastion of conservatism - filing briefs in the many of the same cases, including the one resulting in the recent Supreme Court decision. District of Columbia v. Heller (2008 DJDAR 9813). In 2005, the group was part of a coalition that filed an eventually successful appeal in California's 1st District to overturn a San Francisco ordinance banning guns for city residents. Fiscal v. City and County of San Francisco, A111928
***** The Pink Pistols argument is simple: limiting Second Amendment rights to those in the military effectively disarms gay individuals who are not allowed to serve in the military; without arms, the LGBT community - often the target of violent hate crimes - is unable to defend itself. Anti-LGBT violence increased 24 percent in 2007 from 2006, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, an LGBT advocacy group. That data comes from 14 member groups around the nation. It includes 2,430 victims reporting violent incidents, 21 of which were murders. The FBI's most recent statistics also show an increase: 1,195 incidents in 2006 compared to 1,017 incidents in 2005.
***** "We're just a group of people that act according to our personal convictions," said Pink Pistols international spokeswoman Gwen Patton, who started the Philadelphia, Pa. chapter. "We try to leverage that as best we can to make our voices heard."
***** On June 27, one day after the Heller decision, the NRA filed a lawsuit in federal court against the San Francisco Housing Authority on behalf of an anonymous gay man who lives in public housing. The suit claims a Housing Authority lease provision banning firearms violates residents Second Amendment rights. Guy Montag Doe v. San Francisco Housing Authority, 08-3112
***** According to the complaint, the "plaintiff... keeps a firearm in his home for protection, particularly against perpetrators of sexual orientation-based hate crimes." This is exactly what Pink Pistols members support: Armed Gays Don't Get Bashed, the group's Web site reads.
***** "We want the sex minority community to be able to defend themselves," Patton said. "The best tool... [to do so] is a lawfully armed firearm carried by someone well trained to use it."
***** Tom Boyer started the San Francisco chapter of Pink Pistols in 2001. ***** Like other members, Boyer, 50, believes restrictions on gun ownership should be narrowly tailored rather than broadly applied. In other words, the right to own or carry a gun should be automatic unless you disqualify yourself by committing certain crimes.
***** Boyer, who grew up around guns in Arizona, enjoys shooting for sport. But, he said, he understands the need for guns for self-defense. Boyer said he has been singled out on the streets and verbally attacked for being gay and has felt threatened on more than one occasion.
***** Stephen Mills, co-founder of the Sacramento chapter of Pink Pistols, said he has also been targeted because he is gay. But it was a random and violent home invasion that he said motivated him to join Pink Pistols.
***** A policeman who spoke with Mills after the burglary encouraged him to buy and learn to use a gun.
***** "He said, 'all the thugs in the world know what the sound of a cocking shotgun sounds like,'" Mills remembered.
***** Mills, 58, was wary of training with the NRA. He looked for a gay friendly environment to learn to shoot and found Pink Pistols. Looking back, he said, his assumptions about NRA members were wrong. With few exceptions, he said NRA members have welcomed his group at shoots.
***** Some Pink Pistols members say they face more discrimination from the gay community for their support of gun rights than from the gun community for their sexuality.
***** "Basically, the theory is that gun owners don't care what you do in your bedroom," Krick said. "When it comes down to it, they are more willing to look past the differences to the common ground."
***** A spokeswoman for the NRA said the group fights "for the rights of all law abiding Americans to exercise their inherent civil right to self preservation and protection."
***** "That is something we share with the Pink Pistols and with a variety of other groups," Ashley Varner said.
***** Krick said the leadership in the gay community tends to be aligned with the Democratic Party, which is traditionally supportive of restrictions on gun ownership.
***** "As a result, when they have a pro-gun queer group, they don't always know what to do with us," he said.
***** Jovida Ross is executive director of Community United Against Violence in San Francisco, which works to prevent violence against and within the LGBT population. She said she had heard of Pink Pistols and is wary of their tactics.
***** "Being aware of self defense options... can be very empowering," she said. "But that alone will not prevent hate violence. In general, we would not recommend firearms."
***** Nicki Stallard, 48, leads the San Jose chapter of Pink Pistols. She is a post-operation male-to-female transsexual.
***** She said she spoke on behalf of Pink Pistols at a gun rights convention sponsored by the Second Amendment Foundation last year in Kentucky.
***** "The interactions between me and many of the people were fairly positive," she said. "The thing is, when I did the presentation, I focused on what we had in common."
***** Stallard said she and the members of other groups "agreed to disagree" on other matters.
***** Levinger too sometimes agrees to disagree with fellow Pink Pistol members. Although he said he thinks gay couples should have all the rights afforded to heterosexual couples, he believes marriage should be limited to straight couples.
***** His sense of solidarity, he said, is with people who believe in the right to self-defense.
***** Noemi Robinson is another straight Pink Pistols member. The 37-year-old park ranger has two children with her boyfriend but joined Pink Pistols after meeting Boyer while campaigning against San Francisco's gun ban.
***** Robinson said she grew up in a liberal household. So strong was her distaste for guns that she turned down an opportunity to shoot with the national pistol team while interning for the U.S. Olympic Committee. But Robinson said she grew to enjoy shooting after she met her boyfriend, who was in the military. The couple keeps guns in locked safes throughout their house for protection.
***** Robinson said she has a friend who feels uncomfortable around guns.
***** "When she comes over, she says, 'your gun might shoot me,'" Robinson said. "And I say, 'my gun might save you.' You have to think of it both ways."
***** Few issues are as divisive in American society as guns and gays. In becoming participants in the debate over guns, Pink Pistols members became targets - to attacks on their sexuality from conservative gun rights advocates and to attacks on their beliefs about guns from liberal gay rights advocates.
***** Still, most Pink Pistols members seem to feel being caught in the crossfire is worth it.
***** "We are representing a group of people that hasn't had a vocal piece in the gun movement before and exposing the gun movement to a segment of the population that hasn't been there," said founder Krick, who has since moved to Chicago. "I think that's a good thing for democracy. The more people who know what's going on, the more people who are exposed, that's a positive change."
***** San Jose leader Stallard agreed.
***** The Pink Pistols, she said, "knocks both gays and gun owners out of their complacency."
rebecca_beyer@dailyjournal.com
*****
AN UNLIKELY ALLIANCE OF GUNS AND GAY RIGHTS
Pink Pistols Tout Right to Bear Arms As Self Defense Against Hate Attacks
By Rebecca Beyer
Daily Journal Staff Writer
***** SAN FRANCISCO
***** ***** ***** Since its founding in 2000, Pink Pistols has become an active participant in the national debate over gun control. It has opposed gun restrictions nearly across the board and filed amicus briefs in some of the most important firearms litigation in the nation, including June's landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that found an individual right to bear arms.
***** The Pink Pistols' cause was highlighted that same month when an anonymous gay man and the National Rifle Association sued the San Francisco Housing Authority. The suit claims the authority's lease, which bans residents from possessing firearms or other weapons, violates the residents' Second Amendment rights and puts the anonymous gay plaintiff at risk: if he can't have a firearm, he can't protect himself from violence directed at him because of his sexuality.
***** ********** The group that would become Pink Pistols got its start at a ranch outside of Boston, when a gay man invited a couple of friends to fire off a few rounds. A couple of weeks later, that man, Doug Krick, happened to read an article in Salon that called upon the gay community to stave off anti-gay violence by arming itself - and declaring itself armed to the world. The writer called his theoretical movement "Pink Pistols." Krick asked for permission to use the name, and a gay gun rights group was born.
***** The group Krick began has been loosely replicated 55 times in 33 states and three countries. California has chapters in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Alameda, Orange County, Sacramento, San Jose, and San Diego.
***** Along the way, the Pink Pistols have formed an unlikely alliance with the NRA - generally considered a bastion of conservatism - filing briefs in the many of the same cases, including the one resulting in the recent Supreme Court decision. District of Columbia v. Heller (2008 DJDAR 9813). In 2005, the group was part of a coalition that filed an eventually successful appeal in California's 1st District to overturn a San Francisco ordinance banning guns for city residents. Fiscal v. City and County of San Francisco, A111928
***** The Pink Pistols argument is simple: limiting Second Amendment rights to those in the military effectively disarms gay individuals who are not allowed to serve in the military; without arms, the LGBT community - often the target of violent hate crimes - is unable to defend itself. Anti-LGBT violence increased 24 percent in 2007 from 2006, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, an LGBT advocacy group. That data comes from 14 member groups around the nation. It includes 2,430 victims reporting violent incidents, 21 of which were murders. The FBI's most recent statistics also show an increase: 1,195 incidents in 2006 compared to 1,017 incidents in 2005.
***** "We're just a group of people that act according to our personal convictions," said Pink Pistols international spokeswoman Gwen Patton, who started the Philadelphia, Pa. chapter. "We try to leverage that as best we can to make our voices heard."
***** On June 27, one day after the Heller decision, the NRA filed a lawsuit in federal court against the San Francisco Housing Authority on behalf of an anonymous gay man who lives in public housing. The suit claims a Housing Authority lease provision banning firearms violates residents Second Amendment rights. Guy Montag Doe v. San Francisco Housing Authority, 08-3112
***** According to the complaint, the "plaintiff... keeps a firearm in his home for protection, particularly against perpetrators of sexual orientation-based hate crimes." This is exactly what Pink Pistols members support: Armed Gays Don't Get Bashed, the group's Web site reads.
***** "We want the sex minority community to be able to defend themselves," Patton said. "The best tool... [to do so] is a lawfully armed firearm carried by someone well trained to use it."
***** Tom Boyer started the San Francisco chapter of Pink Pistols in 2001. ***** Like other members, Boyer, 50, believes restrictions on gun ownership should be narrowly tailored rather than broadly applied. In other words, the right to own or carry a gun should be automatic unless you disqualify yourself by committing certain crimes.
***** Boyer, who grew up around guns in Arizona, enjoys shooting for sport. But, he said, he understands the need for guns for self-defense. Boyer said he has been singled out on the streets and verbally attacked for being gay and has felt threatened on more than one occasion.
***** Stephen Mills, co-founder of the Sacramento chapter of Pink Pistols, said he has also been targeted because he is gay. But it was a random and violent home invasion that he said motivated him to join Pink Pistols.
***** A policeman who spoke with Mills after the burglary encouraged him to buy and learn to use a gun.
***** "He said, 'all the thugs in the world know what the sound of a cocking shotgun sounds like,'" Mills remembered.
***** Mills, 58, was wary of training with the NRA. He looked for a gay friendly environment to learn to shoot and found Pink Pistols. Looking back, he said, his assumptions about NRA members were wrong. With few exceptions, he said NRA members have welcomed his group at shoots.
***** Some Pink Pistols members say they face more discrimination from the gay community for their support of gun rights than from the gun community for their sexuality.
***** "Basically, the theory is that gun owners don't care what you do in your bedroom," Krick said. "When it comes down to it, they are more willing to look past the differences to the common ground."
***** A spokeswoman for the NRA said the group fights "for the rights of all law abiding Americans to exercise their inherent civil right to self preservation and protection."
***** "That is something we share with the Pink Pistols and with a variety of other groups," Ashley Varner said.
***** Krick said the leadership in the gay community tends to be aligned with the Democratic Party, which is traditionally supportive of restrictions on gun ownership.
***** "As a result, when they have a pro-gun queer group, they don't always know what to do with us," he said.
***** Jovida Ross is executive director of Community United Against Violence in San Francisco, which works to prevent violence against and within the LGBT population. She said she had heard of Pink Pistols and is wary of their tactics.
***** "Being aware of self defense options... can be very empowering," she said. "But that alone will not prevent hate violence. In general, we would not recommend firearms."
***** Nicki Stallard, 48, leads the San Jose chapter of Pink Pistols. She is a post-operation male-to-female transsexual.
***** She said she spoke on behalf of Pink Pistols at a gun rights convention sponsored by the Second Amendment Foundation last year in Kentucky.
***** "The interactions between me and many of the people were fairly positive," she said. "The thing is, when I did the presentation, I focused on what we had in common."
***** Stallard said she and the members of other groups "agreed to disagree" on other matters.
***** Levinger too sometimes agrees to disagree with fellow Pink Pistol members. Although he said he thinks gay couples should have all the rights afforded to heterosexual couples, he believes marriage should be limited to straight couples.
***** His sense of solidarity, he said, is with people who believe in the right to self-defense.
***** Noemi Robinson is another straight Pink Pistols member. The 37-year-old park ranger has two children with her boyfriend but joined Pink Pistols after meeting Boyer while campaigning against San Francisco's gun ban.
***** Robinson said she grew up in a liberal household. So strong was her distaste for guns that she turned down an opportunity to shoot with the national pistol team while interning for the U.S. Olympic Committee. But Robinson said she grew to enjoy shooting after she met her boyfriend, who was in the military. The couple keeps guns in locked safes throughout their house for protection.
***** Robinson said she has a friend who feels uncomfortable around guns.
***** "When she comes over, she says, 'your gun might shoot me,'" Robinson said. "And I say, 'my gun might save you.' You have to think of it both ways."
***** Few issues are as divisive in American society as guns and gays. In becoming participants in the debate over guns, Pink Pistols members became targets - to attacks on their sexuality from conservative gun rights advocates and to attacks on their beliefs about guns from liberal gay rights advocates.
***** Still, most Pink Pistols members seem to feel being caught in the crossfire is worth it.
***** "We are representing a group of people that hasn't had a vocal piece in the gun movement before and exposing the gun movement to a segment of the population that hasn't been there," said founder Krick, who has since moved to Chicago. "I think that's a good thing for democracy. The more people who know what's going on, the more people who are exposed, that's a positive change."
***** San Jose leader Stallard agreed.
***** The Pink Pistols, she said, "knocks both gays and gun owners out of their complacency."
rebecca_beyer@dailyjournal.com
*****