FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 

Responding to a Fenway Community Health report on GLBT hate crimes, Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly and State Senator Cheryl Jacques released statements condemning hate crimes against GLBT people.

But the Pink Pistols, a civil rights group protecting self-defense rights for sexual minorities, called the officials' statements a "misleading and dangerous smokescreen," claiming those same officials work extensively to legalize and promote discrimination.

"Bias crimes thrive when people are treated unequally," noted Pink Pistols founder Doug Krick. "And Senator Jacques and Attorney General Reilly have both worked diligently to legalize discrimination and use it against the people of Massachusetts. Their condemnation of hate crimes is an enormous hypocrisy."

Krick slammed Attorney General Reilly for using his consumer safety powers to declare draconian 'safety standards' for handguns, effectively banning sale to legally licensed Massachusetts citizens of almost all handgun models available in the US. "The restrictions effectively require handguns to be large, very expensive, and have a physically challenging trigger pull," Krick noted, "effectively discriminating against smaller shooters, the economically disadvantaged, elderly, arthritics, and the physically disabled, while actually decreasing the gun's mechanical safety." Krick noted that a similar restriction passed recently in Los Angeles has come under legal attack by a coalition of women and disabled shooters suing on the basis of discrimination.

Krick also pointed to Jacques sponsorship of Chapter 180, a Massachusetts gun control law that preserved and extended a widely criticized practice called 'discretionary licensing'. "The term 'discretionary licensing' is literally just a code phrase for arbitrary discrimination," Krick explained. "Under this law, a town police chief can deny a defensive gun license for any reason, regardless of the applicant's qualifications, even if they show dire need. They don't even have to give a reason." Krick, who was himself denied a license in Boston, says some Massachusetts towns use the law to discriminate based on criteria ranging from race to housing, and that Boston and Cambridge routinely use this law to deny almost all gun licenses. Krick also noted that the town of Lexington was found by the courts to be guilty of a pattern of gun license discrimination against African-Americans and Jews. Earlier this year, the Pink Pistols condemned Chapter 180 for codifying arbitrary discrimination, noting that one of the shooting victims at Edgewater Technologies in Wakefield held a legal New Hampshire concealed carry permit and was arbitrarily denied a reciprocal Massachusetts license under the 'discretionary' clause of Senator Jacques' law. "Not only did this law criminalize entire classes of law-abiding citizens by making illegal things that were previously legal, but it diverted enormous amounts of police effort into tracking, cataloging, processing, and harassing citizens who aren't committing a crime," Krick explained. "Every one of those police officers could be on the street stopping violent attacks on people instead. This feel-good law has cost real people dearly."

"The Massachusetts' Constitution's Declaration of Human Rights begins 'All people are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness. Equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged because of sex, race, color, creed, or national origin.'," noted Krick.

"Yet this year Senator Jacques testified in opposition to Senate bill 1178, which would simply insure that criteria used to deny citizens the right of self defense must at least be written down in law, not made up on the spot. In her testimony she claimed discriminatory power was necessary to insure public safety, but 32 other states have gone to reformed systems that treat all citizens uniformly, with no effect other than a lower crime rate. When someone lobbies against equal treatment under the law and people's right to self defense, how concerned about hate crimes can she really be?"

Steven Smith, a civil rights activist with the Pink Pistols, described a brutal gay bashing in which a friend was beaten in the head with a hammer in Boston's heavily gay Fenway section. "That incident eventually made me realize how effectively a licensed firearm could deter crime, and how ineffective another law or a group gathering statistics is in the face of real violence," recalled Smith. After the incident, a transgendered friend of Smith attempted to apply for a gun license and was laughed out of a Boston police station without even being given a form. "Unfair treatment, when condoned from the top, sends a message to lower level officials that harassing minorities is acceptable," Smith observed.

Smith also disputed Senator Jacques' claim, made in an October 20 interview with the Cambridge TAB, that "more often than not when you use a gun to defend yourself, it's ultimately used against you."

"That's absolutely untrue," Smith noted. "Crime research published by liberal University of Florida criminologist Gary Kleck conclusively showed that victims who resisted attack using a gun were many times less likely to be injured or killed than those that do not, and actually needed to fire the gun only 2% of the time."

Smith noted that the Pink Pistols have filed testimony in support of Jacques' Senate bill 905, which would hold criminals liable for compensating their victims. But he also noted that both Reilly and Jacques support hate crime laws while opposing and inappropriately restricting legal concealed carry by law-abiding citizens who are often victimized. "It is very irresponsible for public figures to claim that stiffer sentencing penalties will deter an angry basher and a .38 Special will not," observed Smith. "I hope the public filters the rhetoric through its common sense."

"While we are questioning Senator Jacques and Attorney General Reilly's real commitment to defending our community, we would also raise the issue of the ongoing Paddleboro case, in which a young man and woman face hard felony time for a consensual spanking with a wooden spoon under archaic sex laws," Krick continued. "Either official could exert influence to stop this madness, but neither does. Finally, we should remember that Attorney General Reilly is currently defending the state against GLAD's lawsuit to grant marriage rights to same-sex couples. Both officials speak glowingly of the gay community, but talk is cheap and in reality both giveth with one hand while they taketh away with the other. Really, with friends like these, who needs enemies?"

For more information contact either:
Doug Krick              617-678-5762     dkrick@pinkpistols.org
Steven Smith           617-859-3638     ssmith@pinkpistols.org
David Rostcheck     617-510-2275     davidr@pinkpistols.org