Make no mistake: The newest iteration of the pro-gun agenda has nothing to do with protecting LGBT lives and everything to do with blindly and irresponsibly selling guns to an untapped market. Telling LGBT people to carry guns so they don’t get “bashed” — as the Pink Pistols group has done recently — is like telling a woman to stop wearing short skirts to avoid rape. It’s out of touch and deflects blame from those who should truly be held accountable.

Source: No, More Guns Won’t Make LGBT Spaces Safer | Advocate.com

Now, wouldn’t be that  you wanting to keep all the puppies in the kennel so they can be mentally emasculated to remain victims?

Now, I have no problem with somebody disagreeing to the argument of carrying a concealed weapon when it is done in good faith. Unfortunately Erin Fitzgerald is the LGBT Program director at Media Matters which unfortunately known for playing loose with the facts. The article is plagues with the tired old stats and faked studies, but Ms. Fitzgerald uses two examples of LGBT getting in legal troubles and serving time to “demonstrate” that even if they arm themselves, they will sent to prison because they are LGBT (IANAL):

In 2011, CeCe McDonald, a black transgender woman, was assaulted by a bar patron who sliced her face open with a glass. Several people became involved in a scuffle, and McDonald fatally stabbed an attacker with pair of scissors in self-defense.

I did a bit of search and found out why McDonald got a raw deal. Although she claimed Self-Defense, she got nailed because one of the Liberal’s favorite combination of circumstances and laws:

Freeman argued there was no evidence that Schmitz posed a threat to McDonald’s life and that McDonald had failed to exercise her duty to retreat, saying “the evidence here does not reflect self-defense. She stepped forward to thrust a weapon into a person that had not assaulted her. That, to me, just doesn’t fit.” Freeman also said “there is no evidence that I’m aware of that [Schmitz] had any weapon in his hand, or that he had done anything to McDonald, other than to be part of this group, where there were shouts from virtually everyone around.” Freeman also alleged that McDonald’s story changed between the incident and her trial: though on the night of June 5 she confessed to stabbing Schmitz, she later claimed someone else had stabbed him.” Source #1 and #2

So McDonald was armed, Dean Schmitz was not. And even though Schmitz apparently threatened McDonald, he had not initiated an attack and McDonald was forced by law to retreat and not engage. And one last thing, although referred as a “she,” anatomically McDonald is a male so the usual male-female disparity of force was probably not applied. Add that to failing to do Duty to Retreat which is the law in Minnesota and there is no surprise on the verdict. I do find somewhat ironic that Ms. Fitzgerald uses a case where Duty to Retreat, one of the holy grails of the gun control movement, is used against a LGBT successfully and then bitches about the result.

The second case mentioned in the article is even more infuriating it was used because it just ignores legal realities:

The same year McDonald was attacked, Ky Peterson, a black transgender man from Georgia, was sentenced to 20 years for killing a man who was raping him, despite the state’s permissive self-defense laws.

Here is the description of the event according to an article from the same publication,  This Black Trans Man Is in Prison for Killing His Rapist. There was a rape (or attempt) and according to the author of the article, this is how it ended:

Suddenly, the pitch black of the trailer revealed a slice of murky light. Peterson heard two familiar voices shouting: his younger brothers. They must have trailed home from the store a few minutes after him, following the trio’s usual path back through the trailer park. He heard the two boys call his name; he heard the sound of their sneakers scuff on the floor as they pulled at his attacker. He took a gulp of air as the stranger’s weight was thrown off of him, heard their voices raised in an argument. He knew he couldn’t lay still there, even as his injuries revealed themselves to him in a wave of aches.

He stood up, now on one side of the trailer with his two brothers flanking him. He saw the shadowed figure of the naked stranger charging forward. He didn’t have time to think as his fingers grasped the smooth metal of the gun he’d started carrying in his backpack as a nighttime precaution ever since his first rape.

Then Peterson made a decision he’d hoped he’d never have to. He pulled the trigger.

 The initial attack had ceased. Even though her two brothers were teens, there was disparity of force against the unarmed rapist standing at a distance which meant he could not be considered a continuous threat. So when Ky Peterson pulled the gun and shot Samuel Chavez, legally she could not claim self-defense.

 Now, cases like this are not new to us. We know of events where one stupid mistake or ignorance of the law has landed somebody in prison or having to fight an extensive legal battle. That is why we keep insisting on training the mind and staying fresh on the legal front as well as practicing with our weapon. Whether is a MAG 40 class where both aspects of self-defense are addressed or at a minimum reading books like The Laws of Self Defense and our local laws after a day at the range just honing accuracy skills, we have to do our due diligence.

Now, why would anybody write an op-ed piece literally telling people who being able to defend themselves is bad?

Advising LGBT people to take up arms in self-defense actually puts the most vulnerable among our community at greater risk, says this queer researcher and media analyst.

That is the sub-header of the op-ed. But what if “risk” for Ms Fitzgerald and the rest of the LGBT Intelligentsia is not the same as for the rest of the normal people regardless sexual identity or preference? What if “risk” does not mean for them fear of death or grave bodily harm but something else, more insidious in their view?

What if “risk” means that the LGBT community will no longer have a special victim status and will be (shudder)  treated equally in the eyes of The Law? Now the condemning nature of the op-ed starts to make a whole lot of sense. If LGBT becomes mainstream, those in the places of leadership among them will become irrelevant and no longer will be able to have power to sway in politics. And power is the ultimate drug, almost impossible to give up. Those hooked on Power will do anything and sacrifice anybody in order to maintain their fix.

It may sound like an exaggeration on my part, but Pink Pistols is probably being considered a bigger threat to the LGBT Power Structure than Omar Mateen killing rank and file LGBT inside Pulse.