Free Republic

Nobody expected Saturday's Operation PUSH protest at Chuck's Gun Shop & Range to be anything other than a circus of the bizarre. However, nobody anticipated that an address by a Chicago priest would include a call for the murder of a suburban gun shop owner and legislators who oppose gun control. During an address at an anti-gun rally in front of Chuck's, Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina's Church, exhorted the crowd to "drag" shop owner, John Riggio, from his shop "like a rat" and "snuff" him. Rev. Pfleger went on to tell the crowd that legislators that vote...

The Alabama Department of Homeland Security has taken down a Web site it operated that included gay rights and anti-war organizations in a list of groups that could include terrorists. The Web site identified different types of terrorists, and included a list of groups it believed could spawn terrorists. The list also included environmentalists, animal rights advocates and abortion opponents. The director of the department, Jim Walker, said his agency received a number of calls and e-mails from people who said they felt the site unfairly targeted certain people just because of their beliefs. He said he plans to put...

HUDSON, N.H. -- A Nashua man faces a felony reckless conduct charge after his gun discharged in a Wal-Mart bathroom, striking the ceiling and scaring an employee in the next stall. Charles Masterson, 36, said he pointed his gun toward the ceiling because he had been taught that was the safest thing to do when it wasn't being used. The precaution backfired when the gun discharged Tuesday night while Masterson was in the bathroom. Police charged him for putting the teenage employee in danger. Masterson's 13-year-old son also was in the bathroom. Masterson was jailed overnight, but released on personal...

Posted on Tue, Aug. 16, 2005 PINK PISTOLS GAY GUN OWNERS MEMBERS OF NATIONWIDE ORGANIZATION PACK HEAT TO FIGHT HATE CRIMES BY ASHLEY FANTZ afantz@herald.com Keith Jackson disappears into his Wilton Manors bedroom and returns with a taupe suede clutch. He unzips it carefully. ''I love this one, because the bullets just fly out and you don't have to reload,'' he said, ejecting a clip from a nickel-plated .45-caliber semiautomatic Smith & Wesson. ``And if some redneck decides he's going to harass or harm me, he'll be thinking twice about it pretty quickly.'' Raised in rural Pennsylvania, Jackson is an...

Don't be fooled by the stereotype, said Aaron Thomas, a 30-year-old gay man with ruddy cheeks, an open manner and a 9mm semiautomatic handgun. Gay, gun-loving San Franciscans exist, he said shortly before hunching his back, steadying himself and firing at a target. Not only do they exist, they are steamed up about the proposed law -- supported by five San Francisco supervisors and set to go before voters next fall -- that would ban the ownership of handguns. The right to own guns may be even more important than the right to marry, Thomas said during the monthly shooting...

Alongside U.S. 59, several miles north of the Loop, sits the appropriately named 59 Gun Range. Run-down homes, vacant lots and a fireworks emporium line its block. Immediately adjacent is Pancho's Mobile Homes, a makeshift sales lot marked by a hand-painted sign, where dented trailers teeter on cinder blocks like derailed train cars. In the smoky gun shop, which forms the lobby of the range, a wispy teenager with long, oily hair and a dimwitted but lively gaze drawls about the thrills of gun recoil. His sidekick affirms with a crooked smile. At one of the shadowy shooting lanes, Marie...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Initially three, then later, four members of the Central Ohio Pink Pistols, a group promoting the safe handling of firearms in the GLBT community, were threatened by the Executive Director of Stonewall Columbus, who wielded a 2-foot club, and up to 30 volunteer security personnel at the Stonewall Columbus Pride Event on Saturday, June 26. The Pink Pistols were repeatedly ordered to surrender their legally-owned and carried firearms by a steadily-growing army of guards. Knowing the law was on their side, the Pink Pistols refused to surrender their property or knuckle under to illegal threats of violence,...

(CNSNews.com) - A pro-Second Amendment group calls it ironic that organizers of a Columbus, Ohio, "Gay Pride" parade tried to keep gun-carrying homosexuals from taking part in the event. The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) is condemning what it calls "double-standard bigotry" directed at members of the Pink Pistols, a pro-gun organization. Stonewall Columbus, the group that organized the June 27 "Gay Pride" parade, warned members of the Pink Pistols -- prior to the parade -- to leave their guns at home. "Should anyone bring a firearm (to) this Stonewall Columbus event, the...

As a lesbian in a long-term relationship, Margaret Leber objects to the idea of amending the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. But Ms. Leber, a software engineer and a registered Republican in Jeffersonville, Pa., is also a member of the Pink Pistols, an organization of gay and lesbian gun owners, and marriage is not the only issue on her mind. "Right now, I am leaning toward Bush," Ms. Leber said. "All the Democrats just rolled into Congress to vote for this gun-control bill. Somebody with my values and beliefs can't be a single-issue voter." President Bush's support for the gay-marriage...

Political cross-breed Kim Rife of the Central Ohio Pink Pistols told an audience at Ohio University Thursday night that LGBT members have all the more reason to support gun rights, since they're so exposed to anti-gay "bashing." "Bashers perceive the gay community as weak, maybe defenseless and anti-gun," Rife told an audience in Baker Center. "Pulling out a weapon says, 'I'm not as weak as you think I am.'" During her talk, Rife made a number of provocative statements, including reciting a short list of people she would kill if murder were legal. The OU Second Amendment Club -- a...

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Through the window of a firing range, self-described gay redneck Aaron Stevenson holds up a paper target and grins, pleased with the tight group of bullet holes he punched through the midsection of the target's torso with a .357 caliber revolver. In the lobby of the range, Mr. Stevenson's significant other smiles wanly in response. "The fact that he's proud of it and wants to show me" is a little disturbing, Ryan Durant says. Blasting away at a gun range wasn't his first choice for a date, he says. "But I've dragged him to plenty of...

Queue Press Not every line is straight. January 2003 The Twin Cities queer community monthly Pink Pistols: www.pinkpistols.org Twin Cities chapter: www.pinkpistols.org/local/tc/index.html Twin Cities chapter email: twincities@pinkpistols.org Guns-are-a-good-thing site: www.handguncontrol.net Guns-are-a-bad-thing site: www.handguncontrol.org Pink Pistols - Pick on someone your own caliber by DeAnna Miller To know us is to love us, right? Five years After Ellen, mainstream media are crawling with queer characters, darn near every last one adorable, well-off and usually ten times more entertaining than the hets around them. It's gotten so you can't swing a plate of Petrossian caviar anywhere on NBC without hitting a few...

It's no longer just Middle America that believes in defending itself AP THINK of gun enthusiasts and you don't immediately think of the “polyamorous” and BDSM communities. (For the uninitiated, BDSM stands for “bondage, domination and sado-masochism”.) But that may be because you are the victim of outmoded prejudices—about gun ownership, that is, not about BDSM. The Pink Pistols, an organisation of homosexual gun enthusiasts, boasts some 2,000 members, with chapters across the country. The group introduces new shooters to the sport and endorses candidates who support both the Second Amendment and “the rights of consenting adults to love each...