by WorldTribune Staff, June 17, 2016
Gun dealers have reported a major increase in sales to gays and lesbians since an Islamic terrorist killed 49 people in the attack on the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando.
Gun store owners and instructors say there is usually a surge in sales after a high-profile attack – but what is unprecedented are the numbers of gay and lesbian customers.
Mike Smith, a firearms instructor in Colorado Springs, said he has noticed an uptick in LGBT clients.
“I look at it as a disenfranchised minority that needs someone who’s willing to say I’m a resource who’s here and willing to help,” he told FOX 31 Denver.
The Pink Pistols, a shooting club that encourages LGBT people to protect themselves, had a surge of new members the day after the attack. On June 12, the group had about 1,500 members nationwide — by June 13 the number had more than doubled and the group now has some 3,500 members.
The Pink Pistols released a statement on June 12 condemning gun control efforts being pushed by Democratic lawmakers and public figures in the wake of the Orlando attack by terrorist Omar Mateen:
“The Pink Pistols gives condolences to all family and friends of those killed and injured at Pulse. 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.”
The group’s website reads: “We teach queers to shoot. Then we teach others that we have done so.
“Armed queers don’t get bashed. We change the public perception of the sexual minorities, such that those who have in the past perceived them as safe targets for violence and hateful acts — beatings, assaults, rapes, murders — will realize that that now, a segment of the sexual minority population is now armed and effective with those arms. Those arms are also concealed, so they do not know which ones are safe to attack, and which are not…which they can harm as they have in the past, and which may draw a weapon and fight back.”