By Adrian Brune, correspondent
BOSTON- In a state with some of the toughest gun control laws in the country, the first ever pro-gun group for gays and lesbians has targeted an openly gay state senator for her participation in helping to enact those laws.
The Pink Pistols, a new pro-gay, pro-gun political action group, lastweek released a statement condemning state Sen. Cheryl Jacques (D-Needham) - who recently announced her candidacy for lieutenant governor - for her involvement in Chapter 180, a discretionary gun licensing law which they want shot down for good.
Chapter 180, amended in 1998 by legislation Jacques sponsored, grants local police chiefs the sole discretionary right to decide what citizens in a district can carry a gun based on past criminal history, outstanding restraining orders or warrants, or history of violence and mental illness.
The leader of the Pink Pistols, Doug Krick, a card-carrying NRA member, said this type of law opens up the possibility of all sorts of discriminatory practices at the hands of police chiefs across Massachusetts and the diminished ability of gays and lesbians to bear arms.
"'Discretionary licensing' is literally just a code phrase for 'arbitrary
discrimination," Krick said. "An applicant's right to defend
herself is utterly subject to the whim of her town's police chief,
regardless of need. A police chief may deny a license because the
applicant is a lesbian and her partner or stalker is not considered a serious
threat, or because her violent husband has a friend at the police station."
The group said it is working to form alliances with a broad consortium of civil rights advocacy groups to challenge the law on several legal grounds, even though it acknowledges fighting for gun rights in Massachusetts is an uphill battle.
Sources on the other side of the fence have said the Pink Pistols should not expect the help of the NRA, a traditionally anti-gay group, anytime soon.
"I am a gun owner; I skeet shoot; and I believe people have the right to own guns," said John Rosenthal of Stop Handgun Violence, a Boston-based organization that helps enact gun-control laws. "But with the right to own a handgun comes a great deal of responsibility and a police chief, the first line of safety, provides a check on that personal responsibility.
Maybe they [the Pink Pistols] think this is a great controversy and it certainly makes for great headlines, but when push comes to shove, Massachusetts has the lowest crime rate of any industrialized state and the state has reduced violent crime by 50 percent over the past six years. On top of that, I don't know of any police chief brought to court over a charge of discrimination in a licensing appeal."
Jacques said she did not know the reason the Pink Pistols were singling her out, beyond her publicly coming out last spring and her belief in tighter restrictions for those who want to own guns, which is a traditionally liberal view. Chapter 180 existed before Jacques ever had her hand in it and she only added a few more restrictions for police chiefs to review in their licensing, she said.
"The police chiefs had discretion long before my law was passed," Jacques said. "I believe they are misguided, misinformed and being used as a pawn for the NRA. They are basically advocating for the right to carry a concealed weapon everywhere they want to, as enacted in states such as Texas, turning our state into the Wild West all over again. Eighty-five percent of the public supports this law and opponents have lost in federal and state appeals."
The meat of the issue comes with the argument that gays and lesbians, traditionally pro-gun-control, can protect themselves from potential hate crimes by carrying handguns. Krick's group states that police chiefs can and will discriminate against gays and lesbians wanting to defend themselves.
Krick started the Pink Pistols last year after reading a column on the online magazine Salon.com by gay writer Jonathan Rauch, who argued that a gay man he knew believed his life was saved by a handgun when he was confronted by anti-gay youths. According to the piece, the gay man's companion produced a concealed pistol and the attackers turned and fled.
"It is remarkable that the gay movement in America has never seriously considered a strategy that ought to be glaringly obvious," Krick, a bisexual, told the weekly Boston TAB last fall. "In those states [where legal], homosexuals should embark on an organized effort to become comfortable with guns, learn to use them and carry them."
Jacques operates under the theory that violence, especially handgun violence, begets violence.
"I'm not a criminal expert, but I know that statistics say that more
often than not when you use a gun to defend yourself, it's ultimately used
against you," she said. "All I know is that the law that I was the
chief Senate sponsor of doesn't stop any lawful citizen, who feels he or
she needs a handgun to protect themselves, unless he or she is a convicted
felon, a wanted fugitive or has a history of violence or mental illness."