The group "Pink Pistols," which we've covered in the past, is making waves particularly within Seattle's LGBTQ community for meeting with one another to discharge firearms at local gun ranges – something that, according to the mainstream media, is reserved only for Trump-supporting hillbillies from red states.
"I had never touched a gun and I was kind of uneasy just touching it," one 62-year-old LGBTQ by the name of Melissa is quoted as saying to CrossCut after visiting the West Coast Armory gun range in nearby Bellevue with her LGBTQ partner, Jan, for the first time.
"You don't know what to expect, and the first time it was like, wow, it was kind of exhilarating because you actually did it."
Melissa and Jan own guns and visit the West Coast Armory regularly, as they've been doing for the past year. But most of their friends don't know this because, generally speaking, LGBTQs have been programmed to believe that all guns are evil, and that only evil Republicans own and use them.
"Progressive people we know look at us kind of cross-eyed when we tell them we own a gun," Jan says.
Erin Palette, the national coordinator for Pink Pistols, says this is common among LGBTQs who break from the status quo and adopt a love for firearms. For most of them, it's like "coming out" all over again – with all of the shaming, rejection, and even abuse that typically comes with it.
"There is a stigma within the queer community about owning firearms, and it's rather ironic in that this stigma closely mirrors what it was like to come out in the '60s and '70s," Palette is quoted as saying.
"There is definitely a desire to keep their gun ownership on the down low and it can be difficult to live like that."
For more related news, be sure to check out Guns.news and Gender.news.
Will LGBTQs hold true to their ideology of "tolerance" by accepting other LGBTQs who are gun-owners?
Founded in 2000, Pink Pistols has long stood on the mantra that "armed gays don't get bashed," and has encouraged members and potential members to remember this whenever they hear something negative about guns in the media.
Nineteen years later, and Pink Pistols now has about 55 chapters nationwide, including eight just in Washington state, and one in Seattle.
Every month, members of these chapters meet with one another to shoot, picking a different gun range each time. First-time members are introduced to veteran members, followed by instruction about how to use guns for those who've never handled one before.
"Experienced gun owners take time to teach new gun owners about firearms. In between firing rounds and in conversations that linger in the parking lot post-meetups, friendships take hold," writes CrossCut's Dorothy Edwards.
Because of the risks involved with being associated with Pink Pistols and other similar groups, official data on the number of LGBTQ gun owners remains largely unknown. But we do know that, after each subsequent mass shooting, gun sales go up – and this presumably includes the sale of guns to LGBTQs.
"Pulse was that watershed moment where people said, 'Oh wow. We are hated as a demographic and they will go after us indiscriminately,'" Palette points out about the Pulse nightclub shooting that was reported in Orlando, Florida.
"So there were a lot of people who were thinking, 'Yeah, the police may not arrive in time. Maybe I should reconsider my stance on guns and have one to defend myself.'"
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