The LGBT Response to the Orlando Shooting

While the asinine liberals will use the Orlando shooting as a call to arms (#GunControlNow) for more gun control, I prefer to see their response for what it is: a group of ignorant people demanding others be afraid of things they know nothing about.

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But what has the LGBT response to Sunday’s tragedy been?

On Sunday, Pink Pistols speaker Gwendolyn Patton warned Americans against any knee-jerk reaction blaming guns for the Orlando shooting.

“The Pink Pistols gives condolences to all family and friends of those killed and injured at Pulse,” Patton said. “This is exactly the kind of heinous act that justifies our existence. At such a time of tragedy, 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.

“I say again, guns did not do this,” she added. “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 also addressed politicians call for stricter gun control, saying that would only disadvantage law-abiding citizens.

“It is difficult, if not impossible, to foresee such an event,” she said. “But if they cannot be prevented, then they must be stopped as fast as someone tries to start them.”

The New York Daily News ran a great article titled “In wake of Orlando, gays should arm themselves: Otherwise, in gun-free zones like the Pulse nightclub, we’re sitting ducks to maniacs and terrorists”.

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Written by Tom Palmer, the article reads in part:

“It’s time to fight back. No more gun-free designated massacre zones. If there had been armed people with concealed carry permits inside the Pulse nightclub, the zealot who had pledged allegiance to ISIS could have been stopped. Dozens of lives could have been saved.

I say that as a gay man who has himself carried a weapon for protection.

Let’s get one thing very clear. Gun control advocates disarmed the victims at that nightclub. Florida law states unequivocally that even a concealed carry permit “does not authorize any person to openly carry a handgun or carry a concealed weapon or firearm into any portion of an establishment licensed to dispense alcoholic beverages for consumption on the premises, which portion of the establishment is primarily devoted to such purpose.”

Deanna Sykes, the founder of the Sacramento Valley Pink Pistols, lived in Orlando for 10 years and grew up about 45 minutes away. She believes arming the ‘sexual-minority community’, as she calls, is the best way to protect it.

“Best way to lose a gun fight is to show up to one without a gun… would it have made a difference yesterday? It might have. Would it have made a difference if  5 percent of the people in that club were armed? Yeah probably,” Sykes said.

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“I am not going to be one of those people who second guesses the police, they did their best on that, they came in, they took out the bad guy, but they’re not everywhere. We can’t really count on the police to protect us when we need to be protected.”

Finally, leave it to one of my favorite gays to really drive it home. Immediately after the Orlando shooting, Nero took to social media to… well, to Nero:

https://twitter.com/Nero/status/742065218264535045

https://twitter.com/Nero/status/742049895058575360

https://twitter.com/Nero/status/742065600936054784

https://twitter.com/Nero/status/742069664625233920

https://twitter.com/Nero/status/742088956997566464

https://twitter.com/Nero/status/742089580610916352

…and finally, a call to arms using the #ArmTheGays hashtag:

https://twitter.com/Nero/status/742385128685641728

I think you get the point.

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