Los Angeles Times: Gay Firearms Group Takes Aim at Stereotypes

http://latimes.com/news/local/la-000057676jul14.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dcalifornia

OUT THERE
Gay Firearms Group Takes Aim at Stereotypes
* Pink Pistols members train in the proper use of weapons. They say they want to
challenge the assumption that gays and lesbians are anti-gun.
MICHAEL P. LUCAS
TIMES STAFF WRITER

July 14 2001

Tall, sandy-haired Brian Cooper of West Hollywood took a Glock semiautomatic
handgun one recent Sunday and blasted away at a torso-shaped target and an array
of vivid human stereotypes. Cooper was at the shooting range with the Pink
Pistols--a gay-lesbian group that offers its members firearms training and its
foes a target for vituperative political fire.

After sending a clip of 9-millimeter bullets through targets and into spindly
yellow scrub at the Americana 1800 Adventure Club north of Santa Clarita, Cooper
pulled off a pair of sound-muffling ear protectors and ambled under a breezeway
to relax with his significant other, Richard Best, amid the racked rifles and
stacked ammo boxes.

"When I was younger, I shot a .22 [caliber] rifle, but the Glock has quite a
different kick. I have to get used to it," the 36-year-old Cooper said, flexing
his shooting hand as his colleagues in the group paused to reload. Barely a
month old and with only 12 members, the Los Angeles chapter of the Pink Pistols
is but a speck on the recreational-political landscape, but it stands to
challenge assumptions that the gay community is marching in lock-step toward
more restrictive gun control.

The Pink Pistols started last year in Boston, where founder Doug Krick, a
30-year-old computer engineer, said he and a circle of friends were stirred to
action by an article by Jonathan Rauch, a National Journal senior writer and
commentator who often addresses issues of interest to the gay community.

In a piece posted March 13, 2000, on http://www.salon.com, Rauch expressed alarm
over rising anti-gay hate crimes and called on gays to arm themselves in
self-defense. He even suggested the new group's name, which Krick and his
friends readily adopted. "We started out with a bunch of friends who wanted to
go out and go shooting," Krick said. "Then it was, what else can we do? Let's
rate some political candidates."

Shooting Group Gets Political

The Pink Pistols soon tussled with Massachusetts legislators over gun control
bills, drawing publicity that touched a nerve among pro-gun activists elsewhere,
and soon more Pink Pistols chapters sprang up. In California, the group has
opposed legislation requiring the licensing of handgun buyers.

Krick said there are now about 300 members in Indiana, Texas and Arizona. Not
all the members are gay, such as a leader of an Arizona chapter, Krick said, who
calls himself "painfully vanilla and hetero."

"We're here for the purpose of breaking some stereotypes, [two being] the gay
community as anti-gun and the gun community as anti-gay," Krick said.

There's Assemblyman Paul Koretz (D-West Hollywood), for one, long a fervent gun
control advocate, who scoffed at the group. "It's a lot of hype and scam,"
Koretz said. "I would be shocked if any member of our community is a member of
that group. It sounds like a front for the NRA."

But openly gay state Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) tempered any criticism,
pointing out that gay-lesbian groups are a cross-section of America, after all.

"If they're simply about affinity--we're interested in our own self-defense and
target practice and so on--that's fine, but I hope they're not going to try to
convince the community that carrying a gun makes you safe, because it doesn't."

Libertarian Party spokesman George Getz said his party promotes the gay pro-gun
group in its publications.

"We're proud of the Pink Pistols," Getz said. "Crooks and murderers don't agree
with gun control, which is why people need to have guns to defend themselves."

Back at the rural shooting range north of Santa Clarita, where the buzz of
cicadas rises as soon as the thunder of gunfire echoes off into the distance,
Los Angeles Pink Pistols organizer Tony Assenza was getting ready to signal for
another round of live-fire training.

Assenza, a 48-year-old advertising copywriter and competition pistol shooter, is
straight, but he helped launch the group because his gay and lesbian friends are
interested in shooting. He lets the Pink Pistols shoot as his guests at the
private Americana range, where he is a member, and he offers the use of his
collection of firearms and supplies ammunition.

Best watched Cooper pick up a .45-caliber pistol, after telling Assenza that the
9-millimeter felt too light in his large hands.

"For me, it's a personal safety issue," Best said. "I think I'd be safer with a
weapon in the house."

Sue Peabody, a printing sales representative from Valley Village, slipped a
magazine into a purse-sized .25-caliber semiautomatic that she bought several
years ago, fearing what she called an aggressive prowler. Now she enjoys an
outing to the range as "a recreational, stress-relieving thing."

Not that she's gung-ho gun-obsessed, she hastened to add.

"I just don't understand why the gun lobby doesn't like background checks," she
said. "I don't see what the big deal is to wait two weeks to get your gun."

Her partner, Lisa Costanza, a Valley Village real estate agent, said she enjoys
the mental exercise of shooting her .357 magnum revolver.

"It's a discipline the way you have to time everything and the way you
anticipate a shot, control your breathing and everything," Costanza said. "Some
people think it's a big macho thing, but it's not."

Costanza said people react with more curiosity than condemnation when they learn
of her hobby.

"I've never had anybody say, 'Oh my God, that's terrible, you shouldn't own a
handgun,' " Costanza said. "Usually people say, 'I can't own one, I have kids in
the house.' "

Assenza, who spread out a smorgasbord of firepower--9-millimeter semiautomatics,
.38 specials, .45s--said he was pleased with the way novice shooters Best and
Cooper were taking to their lessons. But then, he said, he has found that most
people will enjoy a day on the firing line if they give it a try.

"A lot of people are against guns because of a lack of information, lack of
training," Assenza said. "When people come out and see what this is all about,
my experience is that knowledge at least takes away the extreme end of the
negative perception pattern."

As for Costanza, she was thrilled she could try out so many different guns.

"You don't see a variety like this too often," she said. "It's better than a
wine tasting."

Copyright 2001, Los Angeles Times

http://www.sfphoenixuniformclub.org/Links/LawEnforcement.htm

[url]http://www.sfphoenixuniformclub.org/Links/LawEnforcement.htm[/url]
[url]http://homobase.com/le/[/url]


Ive got to clean up now...I feel dirty.....

Well,
if that is their goal
in my opinion
they have shot themselves in the
foot by calling themselves Pink Pistols.