8chan/8kun QResearch Posts (1)
#23600447 at 2025-09-14 20:45:44 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #28749: Sonday Surprise:Hard Lesson For Left: Mic Is Mightier Than Guns Edition
>>23600446
>How a Utah gun control advocate changed her mind and launched a pro-gun group
Membership remains light, in part due to a pandemic that makes in-person meetings difficult. But with a growing social media presence, she's hoping to expand the group's foothold along the Wasatch Front.
"We've had folks from all different walks of life in all different parts of the state reach out to us," she said. "They express their wants to finally be able to defend themselves, defend their families and defend their communities. ... They didn't know it was an option for LGBTQ folks to do so."
Anyone can join the Pink Pistols, and Fanaeian says the group is currently made up of college-age people of all races and sexual orientations, including Ashton Leve, a graduate student who joined the group as an ally about a month ago.
"With all the things that are going on in the world, there's a lot of hate. Every voting period seems to bring out the worst in people," said Leve who, like Fanaeian, has been a gun owner for less than a year.
"It never really occurred to me that (LGBTQ people) get hit or assaulted just for being who they are," he said. "I felt like this was a good way to reach out and address some of these issues."
A 2018 FBI report showed that 1,364 of the 7,120 hate crime "incidents" - nearly 1 out of 5 - reported that year targeted someone's gender identity or sexual orientation. That's compared to 1,249 in 2017, and 1,200 the year prior. Hate crimes directed at trans and gender-nonconforming people spiked from 119 incidents reported in 2017, to 148 in 2018.
And for many, the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, at the time the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, was a wake-up call. In the days following, the Pink Pistols membership grew from 1,500 to 6,500 nationwide, Rolling Stone reported.
"Gun ownership among our community has been growing ever since the Pulse nightclub shooting. And a lot of people after that began to understand the need to protect ourselves," Fanaeian said. "We can't talk about empowering marginalized communities while simultaneously trying to disarm marginalized communities."
Troy Williams, executive director of Equality Utah, the Beehive State's "premier LGBTQ civil rights organization," said, "Many LGBTQ Utahns own guns, either for sport or self-defense. Many don't."
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"As an organization we support the Second Amendment. We draw the line, however, at military grade weapons in the hands of civilians. We're talking about weapons like the SIG MCX semi-automatic that was used to murder 49 LGBTQ people and wound 53 more at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. These deadly weapons of war belong in the hands of soldiers, not civilians," Williams said.
Fanaeian, on the other hand, wants to see community-based solutions to stop gun violence, rather than what she calls "restrictive gun control."
"As far as legislatively trying to do things such as ban assault weapons, or ultimately make it harder for regular everyday folks to access guns only so rich elitist people can access them … I'm completely against those initiatives."
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School occurred in 2017. It happened in 2018.