Gay Community Arming up Two Years After Orlando Pulse

June 12, 2018, marked two years since the horrific shooting at Orlando Pulse. It also defines two years that an increasing number of gay Americans have spent arming themselves for self-defense.

News.com.au reports that the movement to arm-up has been led by the Pink Pistols, a LGBT gun rights group that stepped onto the national stage hours after news of the Orlando Pulse shooting broke, urging the LGBT community to take their defense into their own hands.

On June 12, 2016, Breitbart News reported that Pink Pistols spokesperson Gwendolyn Patton urged the LGBT community to avoid blaming the Orlando attack on guns. Rather, Patton placed the blame on the person who used the guns:

Let us not reach for the low-hanging fruit of blaming the killer’s guns. Let us stay focused on the fact that someone hated gay people so much they were ready to kill or injure so many. A human being did this. The human being’s tools are unimportant when compared to the bleakness of that person’s soul.

Patton added, “GUNS did not do this. A human being did this, a dead human being. Our job now is not to demonize the man’s tools, but to condemn his acts and work to prevent such acts in the future.” Patton went on to urge members of the LGBT community to arm themselves for self-defense.

And the News.com.au report shows that Patton’s words have resonated. In fact, the Pink Pistols have experienced such growth that they have earned the moniker, the “gay NRA.”

Jeff Bloovman is a nursing student who is gay, and he is also a firearms instructor, and he said, “Gays that are armed and trained, don’t get bashed and killed.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.