I have been asked what I think of Sarah McBride winning the primary for a Delaware state Senate seat. People want my opinion on this because on the one hand she's transgender, and on the other hand she's a firearm prohibitionist.
My honest answer is that I'm simultaneously thrilled and disappointed. Like most things in life, the situation is complex.
Gun rights are necessary, both for Americans in general and for queer people in specific. We are disproportionately affected by violent crime (1 in 4 of us will be victims), and like the motto of the Pink Pistols says, "Armed queers don't get bashed."
However, queer rights are also important to me. In this specific regard, it is a cause for celebration when someone who is obviously queer is able to represent us in government. Just as gun owners rightly deride people who try to pass gun control laws without knowing anything about guns (see Carolyn McCarthy's statement of "I don't actually know what a barrel shroud is. I believe it's a shoulder thing that goes up."), and women rightly deride men who try to pass reproductive laws without knowing anything about gynecology, so too do queer people resent and deride people passing laws that affect us (marriage rights, transitioning, employment protection, etc.) without knowing anything about us.
Ideally, I would prefer that Ms. McBride be pro-gun. However, Second Amendment rights are usually a plank of the Republican party, and queer people tend to avoid the Republican party like the plague (for reasons which are another explanation entirely). Furthermore, let's be blunt: openly queer candidates are less likely to be elected by the typical Republican voter. This is changing, of course; 20 years ago it would have been unthinkable to be openly gay and Republican, and now we have openly queer people supporting Republican values in the media, so perhaps in another 10-20 years there won't be this huge disconnect. Unfortunately, right now if you're queer and running for office, your best chance at election is running as a Democrat... and again unfortunately, the Democrat platform is one of firearm prohibition rather than one of firearm rights.
So who do queer people vote for? Too often, we have to choose between "pro-gun and anti-queer" or "pro-queer and anti-gun". That's an intensely personal choice, and I don't have the right to tell people how to choose in situations like this. I just wish that both my right to live as I wish (queer rights) and my right keep and bear arms (Second Amendment rights) weren't treated as a resource to be exploited on election day.
The Second Amendment is for all Americans. Queer rights are human rights, and human rights are for all Americans.
Politicians, please stop being partisan with our lives.
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
My Thoughts on Sarah McBride
Labels:
Gender & Sexuality,
Guns,
Politics
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
Erin in the Washington Free Beacon
I'm quoted in this article, but what I really want to do is show you the email exchange because there's a lot of good information here that you might not know and could serve you well when discussing firearms, specifically the reported rates of purchase.
I received the following email:
Hello,
My name is Stephen Gutowski and I'm a reporter with the Washington Free Beacon. I'm working on a story about gun sales spiking in Pennsylvania, particularly in June. Our analysis shows that, relative to previous years, June's gun sales spike was even larger than March's. Las Dalseide from the NRA gave me your contact information and said you might be able to provide some good insight about what's happening on the ground.
What have you been seeing? What do you think has lead to the spike in sales?
Have you noticed any increase in activism by new gun owners? Do you think the spike in sales will impact the upcoming elections?
My reply:
First of all, gun sales haven't been spiking just in Pennsylvania; they've been spiking EVERYWHERE. As you can see from this FBI document which tracks NICS queries*, gun sales have been going gangbusters since December 2019, with even larger spikes in March and June. Not coincidentally, March is when we entered lockdown for COVID-19 and police departments in big cities told civilians that their responses to 9-1-1 would be delayed or even nonexistent due to the virus, and June was the first full month of rioting after the death of George Floyd.
* I don't know how much you know about gun purchases, so please allow me to explain how they work. If you already know, I apologize.
- When you go to buy a gun, you fill out ATF Form 4473. This information is then used for the instant background check system (ICS).
- ... unless you live in a state which has its own ICS**. In that case, one of two things happens:
- If you don't have a concealed carry permit with that state, your background is checked by the state level ICS. This is important because, to my knowledge, this information is not shared with the FBI and is therefore not included in the national metric.
- If you do have a concealed carry permit with the state, you just fill out your form 4473 and take your gun home. This is because a concealed weapon permit is effectively the state saying "We have already checked this person's background exhaustively and there is no reason for them to wait as we do a sloppier version of it with the ICS." This is also why people with carry permits do not need to wait the mandated 3-day "cooling off period" for handgun purchases.
- Also, fun fact: the IC is done per purchase, not per gun. So if someone without a permit bought 3 guns at once, that would still be only one background check.
- So all of this is a very complicated way of explaining "As big as the FBI numbers are, they aren't a complete picture of how many people are buying guns or how many guns are being bought."
Now on to the rest of your questions!
What have you been seeing?
Increased demand in both firearms and ammunition. My local gun shop in my rural county is completely sold out of guns. This is a store which used to have display cabinets full of pistols and a wall full of rifles and shotguns, and now they are stripped bare of guns. When I talked to the guy at the counter the other day, he said "We just got in a Glock 40 today. I'm about to put it up on our Facebook page. I expect it'll be gone by the end of the day." It was about 1pm when I spoke to him.
Ammunition is similarly hard to find. Most handgun ammo is simply GONE, and those which can be found (usually premium self-defense ammo) is selling for outrageous prices -- at least double what it used to cost, maybe more. Rifle ammunition is not as scarce, but it's getting there. About the only thing which isn't hard to find is12 gauge shotgun ammo... but I'd say that's just a matter of time, so stock up now.
What do you think has led to the spike in sales?
Uncertainty about the future, loss of faith in infrastructure elements such as the police, and concern about political and social unrest. Essentially, COVID-19 led to people wondering if the police would be able to respond to crimes, so they bought guns; then the extended lockdown made a lot of people restless and "stir crazy"; then George Floyd died, and outrage combined with cabin fever exploded into social unrest, protests, and rioting; and now with the election looming, a lot of people are wondering what will happen come November 4th.
Have you noticed any increase in activism by new gun owners?
Sorry, I'm going to need clarification on this. What kind of activism do you mean?
I'm mainly wondering if you've seen evidence of new gun owners beginning to become involved in gun-rights activism.
Not that I've seen... but give it time. I've long said that gun owners become gun voters, especially when the government decides to take away rightly held property. Given the major civil and political unrest is so significant that both parties are denouncing it, and given that the influx of new gun owner is so large that even Bloomberg's The Trace ran an article on gun safety, I think it's safe to say that both parties know that even mentioning gun control is the political third rail of this campaign. No, I'd say that the true evidence will be during the midterm elections... assuming, of course, that the unrest has settled down by then and we've returned to normal.
Do you think the spike in sales will impact the upcoming elections?
Absolutely. Again, these mass purchases of guns for self-defense indicates an unprecedented level of distrust by the average American of the government's ability to keep them safe. Even the Biden campaign is speaking out against the riots, which tells me that both parties see that the majority of voters want a return to law and order.
Monday, September 28, 2020
Assorted Calibers Podcast Ep 120: the Notorious Round Table Ginsberg

In This Episode
The gang decided to get together and discuss the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who her replacement might be, and what it means for the future.
Erin says:

So sit back and enjoy another ACP round table episode.
Erin says:
So sit back and enjoy another ACP round table episode.
Did you know that we have a Patreon? Join now for the low, low cost of $4/month (that’s $1/podcast) and you’ll get to listen to our podcast on Friday instead of Mondays, as well as patron-only content like mag dump episodes and our hilarious blooper reels and film tracks.
Show Notes
Monday, September 21, 2020
Assorted Calibers Podcast Ep 119: The Fisk That Erin Likes!

In This Episode
- Erin and Weer’d are tired, so they dive right into the segments without a main topic.
- Steve tells us about how he's going to handle supply chain issues when he opens his gun shop;
- Weer'd brings us a GREAT audio fisk on why Giffords' stance on Stand Your Ground laws is nothing but garbage rhetoric;
- and Sean talks about the contentious Netflix movie Cuties and how it relates to the gun control debate.
Did you know that we have a Patreon? Join now for the low, low cost of $4/month (that’s $1/podcast) and you’ll get to listen to our podcast on Friday instead of Mondays, as well as patron-only content like mag dump episodes and our hilarious blooper reels and film tracks.
Show Notes
Main Topic:
Weer’d Audio Fisk:
- Giffords-Why Stand Your Ground Laws Have to Go
- JCS - Criminal Psychology- Jordan Davis’ Killer
- Assorted Calibers Podcast Ep 108
- Massad Ayoob on Stand Your Ground Laws
- Race, Ethnicity, and Sex of Victim by Race, Ethnicity, and Sex of Offender, 2016
- Emmett Till
- Harassment By Morris Dee of Southern Poverty Law Center
- "Just Run" Is Terrible Self Defense Advice | Running Away is Not The Answer
- Florida Homicide Rates
- Effects of Stand-Your-Ground Laws on Violent Crime
Sean on Cuties:
Sunday, September 20, 2020
My GRPC 2020 Address
Hello, everyone. My name is Erin Palette, and the day after the 2016 Pulse Massacre I founded Operation Blazing Sword, a nationwide charity designed to connect gun-curious queer people with friendly and non-judgmental gun owners who would teach them the basics of safe firearm operation and responsible gun ownership. In 2018, the Pink Pistols – America’s oldest LGBTQ firearms organization – incorporated into Operation Blazing Sword, making me the head of the largest pro-gun, pro-queer group in the country.
As you can imagine, this puts me in a very interesting place both culturally and politically: the far right loves my support of the Second Amendment but hates that I’m gay and transgender, and the far left loves my queerness but hates that I’m pro-gun. I catch a lot of flak from both sides for not supporting their version of freedom when, quite ironically, the position I have – “I haven’t hurt anyone and my lifestyle doesn’t affect you, so please leave me alone and let me be a queer gun owner in peace without passing laws against that” – is, to my mind, the most freedom-centered position of them all.
This year’s theme is “Elect Freedom.” To be completely honest, I feel like I already covered this topic last GRPC when I told you that the best way to grow gun rights was to abandon your partisanship and become a single-issue activist, with that activism being the preservation of the Second Amendment and the expansion of firearms rights. If you haven’t watched it yet, I hope that you will.
For my speech this year I’m going to do something slightly different and talk to you about how to Retain Freedom. Our country is currently experiencing unrest on a level not seen in my lifetime, and from my perspective here in late August 2020 it seems obvious that in a month the unrest will have increased and the division escalated. I sincerely hope that by the time you see this, peace and common sense will have prevailed and we will no longer be shooting each other in the streets, but I won’t hold my breath waiting for that.
2020 has also heralded a veritable explosion of new gun owners. More guns have been bought in the past 8 months than in any other time since the FBI has kept track, with the biggest spikes happening in March and June. Not coincidentally, March is when we entered lockdown for COVID-19 and police departments in big cities told civilians that their responses to 9-1-1 would be delayed or even nonexistent due to the virus, and June was the first full month of rioting after the death of George Floyd.
I can assure you that these purchases were not all made by firearm owners, for exactly the same reason that those of us who specialize in emergency preparedness were not the ones buying toilet paper by the pallet: we already had ours. No, the vast majority of the new purchases were made by people who previously did not own a gun but, when faced with mounting evidence that they could soon be on their own and have to defend themselves, went out and bought a firearm for self-defense. These seven million additional purchases were so remarkable that even Michael Bloomberg’s The Trace was forced to write an article on firearm safety for its readers… although I imagine it was published with Bloomberg’s nose wrinkled in disgust.
And now, in the midst of this unprecedented uncertainty and these unprecedented firearms purchases, we have before us an unprecedented opportunity to do what I urged you to do last year: reach out to these new gun owners and, instead of mocking them, welcome them into our ranks. As gun owners, they now have “skin in the game” when it comes to firearm prohibition, and I assure you that many if not most of them will be reluctant to turn in their guns to a government which has so visibly failed to protect them and so visibly failed to ensure domestic tranquility.
These new gun owners didn't buy seven million new firearms out of some newfound desire to exercise a previously neglected aspect of freedom; they bought those guns because they saw an imminent need for protection, and that inability to protect themselves and their family scared them. This is why I say that once someone is a gun owner, they are likely to become a gun voter.
Firearms exist at a peculiar nexus of cheap enough for anyone to buy, and yet expensive enough that we fight tooth and nail to keep them; they are bound irrevocably into our history and our struggle for freedom, and yet are so controversial that we must have a Constitutional Amendment to protect them; and even then, governments large and small – city and county, state and federal – gnaw at that protection like termites at the foundation of our nation’s house.
You wish to Retain Freedom? Then retain these new gun owners as your comrades in literal arms. Welcome them into our community, include them in your activities, and teach them what they have to lose if our right to keep and bear arms is taken from us.
This Is The Way. Will you show them?
Labels:
Blazing Sword,
Guns,
Pink Pistols,
Politics
Friday, September 18, 2020
Virtual GRPC 2020
Virtual GRPC 2020 starts tomorrow at 11 am Eastern. Here is the schedule; I should go live around 3:26 pm on Sunday.
Labels:
Blazing Sword,
Guns,
Pink Pistols,
Politics
Monday, September 14, 2020
Assorted Calibers Podcast Ep 118: People Making Poor Life Choices

In This Episode
- Erin and Weer’d discuss two developing stories: first the "NRA Whistleblower" aka Josh Powell, and then the fatal confrontation between an Antifa Protester and the US Marshals in Washington state;
- David brings us a few horror stories from the Armorer's Bench;
- the Trunk Monkey tells us about the process of starting his own Gun Monkey shop;
- and Weer'd brings us an audio fisk of the gun control positions of Vice-Presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
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Show Notes
Main Topic:
- Custom Tetsubo
- Fuzion Digital Pocket Scale
- Antifa Supporter Killed By Police
- Ex-NRA Insider Speaks Out
- Vice: Man Linked to Killing at a Portland Protest Says He Acted in Self-Defense
Gun Lovers and Other Strangers:
- AK Bolt
- AK Receiver
- AR-Bolt-Extractor
- AR Bolt Rust
- 1911 with missing Screw
- Muddy Taurus 1
- Muddy Taurus 2
- Muddy Taurus 3
- Muddy Taurus 4
- Cleaning Solution
- Taurus After 1
- Taurus After 2
Weer’d Audio Fisk:
- CBS News: Sen. Kamala Harris outlines plans to curb gun violence if she's elected president
- Kamala Harris on Gun Safety
- Kamala Harris talks Gun Safety in Iowa
- Kamala Harris tells Iowans 'we need reasonable gun safety laws in this country'
- Sen. Kamala Harris Takes Questions from College Students in the Tonight Show Audience
- How Do Criminals Get Their Guns?
- Red’s Loses its Gun Licence
- ACP Ep 16
- ACP Ep 17
- Social Posts Spin Harris’ Gun Control Proposal
- Criminal History of the Tuscon Shooter
- Gun Control Responds to Compromise Background Check Bill
- Smart Gun Contest
- Gun Free Schools Act
- Why Do we Get Columbine so Wrong?
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The Fine Print
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial- No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Erin Palette is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

