Memberships have more than doubled in a US LGBT pro-gun rights organization since a gunman opened fire at a gay nightclub in Florida last month, killing 49 people.
Pink Pistols Utah chapter president Matt Schlentz said Pink Pistols membership has grown from 1,500 to 4,000 since Omar Mateen’s June 12 rampage, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
“It’s really sad that something on this scale had to happen for people to realize this is a need for our community,” Schlentz said. “But the reality is we still get attacked for kissing our partners or holding hands in public. We get windows smashed for having an equality sticker on them.”
Schlentz owns semi-automatic rifles similar to the Sig Sauer MCX that Mateen used, and he said he gets mixed reactions from people who learn he is a gun rights advocate.
“Obviously, as a gay man, I have to have some liberal views socially. But on this one point, I have very conservative views. The reality is what it is — the world is a violent, terrible, scary place, and people do wish me harm based on who I love,” he said.
Pink Pistols organized in 2000 in response to a series of violent incidents like the murder in Wyoming of gay college student Matthew Shepard. Some early slogans were “Queers bash back” and “Pick on someone your own caliber.”
Stonewall Shooting Sports of Utah is another pro-gun LGBT group.
“As awful as Orlando is, I feel like this is a huge eye-opener for a lot of people that the world is not a perfect place, especially for a group that’s at risk for this kind of violence,” said Scott Mogilefsky, the group’s president.
There was an increase in people inquiring with the group after Orlando, he said.
“Security should be armed at all gay nightclubs, and all employees should run through a defensive shooting course once a year,” Mogilefsky said. “When you think about supremacist groups, a gay bar is an easy target. And the shooter knew that. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing