The Pink Pistols are a gay

Gay

Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

 gun rights

Gun politics in the United States

Gun politics in the United States refers to an ongoing political and social debate regarding both the restriction and availability of firearms within the United States. It has long been among the most controversial and intractable issues in American politics...

 organization in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. Their mottos are "Pick on someone your own caliber

Caliber

In guns including firearms, caliber or calibre is the approximate internal diameter of the barrel in relation to the diameter of the projectile used in it....

" and "Armed gays don't get bashed

Gay bashing

Gay bashing and gay bullying is verbal or physical abuse against a person who is perceived to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender . Such abuse is used also to bully heterosexual persons and persons of non-specific or unknown sexual orientation.A "bashing" may be a specific incident, and one...

." Inspired by a Salon.com

Salon.com

Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...

 article written by Jonathan Rauch

Jonathan Rauch

Jonathan Charles Rauch is an American author, journalist and activist. After graduating from Yale University, Rauch worked at the Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina, for the National Journal magazine, and later for The Economist magazine and as a freelance writer.Currently a senior writer and...

, Krikket (aka Doug Krick), a libertarian

Libertarianism

Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...

 activist from Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

 while living in Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, founded the Pink Pistols in July 2000. The organization now has 60 chapters in 33 states and three countries that are principally made up of gun-owning LGBT

LGBT

LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...

 individuals, though neither status is mandatory for membership.

The political orientation of the Pink Pistols is considered unusual due to the popular perception in the United States of firearms ownership as a "conservative issue

American conservatism

Conservatism in the United States has played an important role in American politics since the 1950s. Historian Gregory Schneider identifies several constants in American conservatism: respect for tradition, support of republicanism, preservation of "the rule of law and the Christian religion", and...

" and sexuality as a "liberal issue." However, there is nothing within either of these two single-issue

Single-issue politics

Single-issue politics involves political campaigning or political support based on one essential policy area or idea.-Political expression:...

s that is mutually exclusive and a variety of other pro-gun organizations exist for groups not typically associated with gun rights (for example the "Democrats for the Second Amendment").

Pink Pistols' activities include firing range

Shooting range

A shooting range or firing range is a specialized facility designed for firearms practice. Each facility is typically overseen by one or more supervisory personnel, called variously a range master or "RSO – Range Safety Officer" in the United States or a range conducting officer or "RCO" in the UK...

 visits and political activism. The group occasionally produces report cards on politicians, rating their position on issues of interest to members. According to pinkpistols.org:
The Pink Pistol's symbol consists of an overhead view of a picto-person

Pictogram

A pictograph, also called pictogram or pictogramme is an ideogram that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Pictographs are often used in writing and graphic systems in which the characters are to considerable extent pictorial in appearance.Pictography is a...

 aiming a handgun

Handgun

A handgun is a firearm designed to be held and operated by one hand. This characteristic differentiates handguns as a general class of firearms from long guns such as rifles and shotguns ....

 in an isosceles stance super-imposed on a pink triangle

Pink triangle

The pink triangle was one of the Nazi concentration camp badges, used to identify male prisoners who were sent there because of their homosexuality. Every prisoner had to wear a downward-pointing triangle on his or her jacket, the colour of which was to categorise him or her by "kind"...

. The pink triangle, now a gay pride

Gay pride

LGBT pride or gay pride is the concept that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity...

 and gay rights symbol, was originally a badge

Nazi concentration camp badges

Nazi concentration camp badges, primarily triangles, were part of the system of identification in Nazi camps. They were used in the concentration camps in the Nazi-occupied countries to identify the reason the prisoners had been placed there. The triangles were made of fabric and were sewn on...

 that homosexual concentration camp victims were forced to wear during the Holocaust.

External links

• Official website
• Mentions in the media from 2000 to 2003 are available at http://www.pinkpistols.org/media.html
• "Coming Out of the Closet: These guys won’t be victims", from the National Review
  National Review
  National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
  
  
• Pink Pistols from Salon.com
  Salon.com
  Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
  
  
• NH: Gay gun group holds monthly range event
• Valley of the Sun Pink Pistols of Phoenix, Arizona