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I shoot Ark's Yugo M-56 rifle, and watch Bowman fire off 20 rounds from a GI combine with a paratrooper stock. Then Doug gives me the chance to shoot his deer rifle, the noise and kick of which is a very centering experience (as in, it scared the shit out of me). We stop to talk politics: Everyone's voting for Obama. 44 Magnum with a hellish kick (and a modified trigger so sensitive it fires when I fart), and two different shotguns firing cartridges filled with birdshot, buckshot, and slugs. "Well, I saw an AR-15 online with pictures of Hello Kitty on it, and I thought I could do better," he says. Luckily for my fragile straight ego, it fires just like any heterosexual gun might. Doug has brought along his AK-47, painted pink and white, and covered in stickers of pink hearts, butterflies, and flowers. "At least not the ones I've known."Īt this point I feel like lighting a cigar or something to butch things up, but frankly I disagree with Freud about a cigar sometimes just being a cigar, and besides, I seem to have left my humidor at home. "They don't use it to shut up, that's for sure," says Ark. "You know trannies use duct tape to tuck it back," says Gilbert. "I try not to say muffs in case there's a lesbian around," says Gilbert. "What do we have by way of ear protection?" asks Doug. Once we arrive at our range, we set up a table with an awful lot of guns on it, and some targets, both at close range and about 50 yards away. I couldn't wait to get back to Portland and tell everyone I'd been shooting with a gay blind man! Indeed, he's the second blind man in Oregon with a concealed handgun license. "I can't see the targets, anyway," he said. Speaking of diversity, I was somewhat surprised in McDonald's when Gilbert whipped out a white cane from under the table. Which is why I now realize the Pink Pistols are fucking wonderful, because they shoot holes through such narrow mindedness with glee. In other words: Most Portlanders are proud they just elected a gay mayor, but wouldn't be too concerned if our local gun fanatics were lined up against a wall and shot. "And so gay people are often considered traitors when they're interested in guns." "In Portland people want to be liberal, which means they're into the gun-control thing," says Gilbert. Then there's the moral contortionism of the average Portlander (which I sometimes share, but which you might describe as liberal fascism), and which I think is more about being closed minded when it comes to granting others the right to live as they choose. It's just that Western culture (and by that, I really mean "me") has always been more comfortable denying it. From Daniel Craig as James Bond to Rock Hudson in Giant, not to mention those two handsome cowboys in Brokeback Mountain, there's no doubt an excess of masculinity coupled with the image of something hard and powerful stuffed into one's trousers. I wasn't blind to the homoeroticism in the language or iconography surrounding guns. I decided to challenge my preconceptions by going along. Yet to many people, me included, the principles of gay rights and gun rights have always seemed at opposite ends of the political spectrum. For the last two years, 40 or so active members have marched in Portland's Pride Parade, albeit without actually carrying their weapons, thanks to safety concerns expressed by the Portland Police Bureau. The Portland chapter of the Pink Pistols is one of over 50 similar and loosely affiliated gay rights gun clubs around the country ( )-and one just started in Canada. Gilbert's statement is perhaps the most frank I've ever heard from a gun fanatic connecting shooting and cock, never mind double entendres like "going out with a loaded gun" or offering you the opportunity to "play with my weapon." He's candid and endearing, and I'm beginning to think I might see the point of his bizarre gay rights gun group, after all. "The difference is, we're more for the dick, shopping, and champagne crowd." They're for the pussy, football, and beer crowd," says Pink Pistols member Steve Gilbert, as we're taking a break from shooting on a sunny Saturday afternoon.
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"Most gun clubs are for men who like John Wayne or Charlton Heston.