Sticking to their guns

By J.D. Mullane
Staff Writer

Some gays and lesbians say a gun is the best defense.

Partners Maggie Leber (left) and Gwen Patton are members of Pink Pistols, a group that believes the best defense against gay-bashing thugs is a loaded handgun. Pink Pistols has 29 chapters nationwide. (Photo: Bill Johnson)

Matthew Shepard. Brandon Teena. Tyra Hunter. Barry Winchell. Anthony Milano.

All were murdered because they were gay. It's a list that Gwen Patton and her partner, Maggie Leber, don't intend to join. So they pack heat.

Both women are members of Pink Pistols, a group that believes the best defense against gay-bashing thugs is a loaded handgun.

"We're not a bunch of crazies running around with guns. All we want is to be safe," said Patton as she lunched with members of the group at an Upper Southampton restaurant.

"The fact is," said Leber, "there are people out there who don't like gays, don't like what we are and are waiting to hurt us. To take up legal firearms is the most effective means to defend oneself."

Pink Pistols has 29 chapters nationwide, including one in the Delaware Valley. The group has about 1,500 active members throughout North America.

The national group was launched nearly 21/2 years ago in Boston after conservative journalist Jonathan Rauch implored fellow gays to keep from becoming assault victims by acquiring and learning to use legal firearms.

"They should set up Pink Pistols task forces, sponsor shooting courses and help homosexuals get licensed to carry," Rauch wrote in a March 2000 Salon magazine article.

"That was our call to arms," Patton said.

Some 9,300 hate crimes were reported in the United States in 1999, according to the latest numbers available from the FBI. Hate crimes, as defined by the FBI, are motivated by personal prejudice against a person because of race, sexual orientation, religion or ethnicity.

Most hate crimes reported in 1999 involved race, but 16 percent involved sexual orientation. While three murders were recorded, a typical gay hate crime involved "intimidation" such as name-calling, the FBI said.

Men were usually the targets. Pennsylvania reported 1,558 hate crimes in 1999, of which 143 involved sexual orientation.

The FBI cautioned that its numbers are taken from police agencies across the nation that voluntarily provide the data, and shouldn't be considered definitive.

Whatever the statistics, the Pink Pistols aren't taking chances. The group's motto is "Pick on someone your own caliber."

The Delaware Valley chapter gathers once a month to practice shooting at local firing ranges. Membership is open to all. Patton estimates about one-third of the Delaware Valley chapter's 20 members are heterosexual.

A married man, who declined to give his name, said he joined Pink Pistols because "they're good people, good company."

Pink Pistols helps new members choose firearms and obtain a permit and training. The group's reasoning: If the general public knows that gays are willing to protect themselves with legal firearms, life-threatening attacks are less likely.

"Eventually, the word will get out that not all (gays and lesbians) are going to be helpless targets. If you're going to go out for a night of gay bashing and you pull out your baseball bat, not all of us are going to cower in fear," Leber said. "Some of us will fight back. And that's our right. Self-defense is a basic human right."

Officially, Pink Pistols is nonpartisan, however, Leber and Patton acknowledged that promoting self-defense through firearms is a touchy issue that puts the organization at odds with gay activists who favor gun control. Also, there is unease, if not hostility, within the gay community about joining forces with conservative groups such as the National Rifle Association to promote the right to bear arms, the women said.

"The reason for that is a lot of gay folks automatically embrace a whole set of political beliefs, and that's typically liberal Democrat, which includes an anti-gun platform," Leber said.

"With the NRA, you have this image of Billy Bob in his red checkered shirt drinkin' his beer an' getting' all riled up because them's queers are runnin' all over," Patton said, affecting an exaggerated Southern drawl. "But we've gotten more welcome and have been treated with more respect by the mainstream shooting community than we have by the mainstream gay community.

"We're pro-gay and pro-gun. We're an interesting amalgam of politics - until you realize that both are about liberty and personal freedom," Patton said.

Doug Krick, who founded the first Pink Pistols chapter in Boston a few months after Rauch's article was published, said most "ground level" gay activists have no problem with the group.

"It's when you get to the upper level activists that we encounter a lot of grief," he said. "A lot of them have this idea that the world would be better off without guns."

That's nonsense, he said. He pointed to research by University of Chicago Law School professor John Lott that showed that states with the largest increases in gun ownership between 1977 and 1994 also had the steepest drops in violent crime.

The Pink Pistols also opposes hate crime laws, which increase penalties for committing crimes against certain groups, including gays.

"We don't want special rights and special laws," Leber said. "We just want equal treatment under the law. If someone shoots me because I'm queer, I don't want them tried and convicted because I'm queer. I want them tried and convicted because they shot me."

Last week, the local chapter met for its monthly lunch, followed by shooting practice at the Classic Pistol Indoor Range in Southampton.

Leber loaded her Kel-Tech P11 9mm handgun and aimed it at a paper target of a man's silhouette. She squeezed off 12 quick, clean shots, and then examined the target. All the shots hit the target in vital organs, including two to the head.

"I've shot better," Leber said, probing one of the head shots with her finger. "He's dead, though."

"With 12 rounds in him, I would hope so," Patton said, as she aimed her 9mm handgun at the target. Patton squeezed off nine shots. One hit the target in the heart.

"Yep," she said, looking at the hole. "He won't be bashing me anymore."

J.D. Mullane can be contacted via e-mail at jmullane@phillyburbs.com