While perusing my images files to find an illustration for this article — I was actually looking for my Philadelphia Inquirer subscription notification image — I found this old ad for subscriptions to the newspaper. I guess this is what qualifies as “Philly Love”:

The queer people who are buying guns to prepare for Trump’s America

“We’re not looking to arm up and storm the capital,” one gun owner said. “We just don’t want to be put in concentration camps.”

by Zoe Greenberg | Sunday, January 5, 2024 | 5:00 AM EST

On a brisk Saturday afternoon, A. crouched in a boxer’s stance, knees bent, one hip forward, raised her new Ruger Security-380 pistol aloft with both hands, and pulled the trigger. Spent gold casings clinked to the ground as a paper plate across the range filled with bullet holes. Next to her, a row of men in sweatshirts and earmuffs affably shot their own marks.

A., who The Inquirer is identifying by the first letter of her first name because of safety concerns, is new to the world of shooting ranges and target practice. As a trans woman who lives in Philadelphia, she began seriously considering armed self-defense this summer, as she saw Texas uphold a ban on gender-affirming care for minors and Florida prohibit nurse practitioners from prescribing hormones to transgender people. She watched with increasing dread as Republicans spent nearly $215 million on network TV ads portraying people like her as a dangerous threat to the country.

“Three months before the election, that’s when the alarm bells started to ring,” A., who is 24 and speaks carefully and thoughtfully, said recently. When she mentioned wanting to learn how to fire a gun to friends, they stared at her blankly.

But she felt she couldn’t have been more rational. On Nov. 2, she bought her first gun, at Delia’s Gun Shop in Northeast Philly.

I guess that the lovely Kathy Griffin, who’s been claiming that people need to come see her stand up comedy acts now, before she gets thrown into an ‘internment camp,’ is reaching people. I’d say her claim is overblown, considering that President Trump didn’t have her thrown behind barbed wire following her posting of a picture holding what was supposed to be the President’s bloody head, later saying that “she believes she’s been personally attacked by the president and the first family.” I guess that she couldn’t take what she dished out!

“Minorities that are armed are more difficult to legally oppress,” she said. She was reassured by the idea that “in the event of hate crimes or terrorist attacks, knowing that, ‘OK, I’m personally armed and I can protect my property and people that are close to me.’” She is applying for a concealed carry permit in Pennsylvania, though she doesn’t plan to carry the gun with her every day.

By the end of her practice at the outdoor range at French Creek State Park, bullet casings littered the ground near her backpack and water bottle, which was decorated with rainbow hearts and a “Protect Trans Kids” sticker.

‘If I can’t protect myself, who will?’

Since Donald Trump’s reelection in November, nontraditional gun groups across the city and country have seen a flood of interest. The national Liberal Gun Club said it has received thousands of training requests since the election, more than in all of 2023. A spokesperson for the group estimated that roughly a quarter were from LGBTQ people.

In Philadelphia, in the waning weeks of the year, residents peppered local queer Facebook groups with questions about guns and training. The local chapter of the Socialist Rifle Association, a leftist analogue to the National Rifle Association, said it saw a surge in paid memberships; its regular classes about gun safety filled up immediately, so they added more. The head of the Delaware Valley chapter of the Pink Pistols, a longtime gay gun group with the slogan “Armed Gays Don’t Get Bashed,” said he received a sudden flurry of emails inquiring about gun training.

We at The First Street Journal believe in the Second Amendment, and the right of law-abiding Americans to own and carry firearms. But let’s tell the truth here: in Philadelphia, “A” is far more likely to need her weapon to protect herself from street crime and the local gang-bangers than any round up of queers.

Hey, if the newspaper can call them queers, then so can I!

We noted, almost three years ago, how the City of Brotherly Love was seeing a tremendous surge in applications for concealed carry permits, not due to any round up of homosexuals, but due to the tremendous homicide rate. The Inquirer noted the same thing much later.

We have to wonder here: just how much of this fear has been stoked by the credentialed media? The Inquirer, especially its far-left columnist Will Bunch, has been one of the worst offenders in stoking fear, but let’s be reasonable here: there are no valid laws against homosexuality in the United States. There is no crime, at least not any mentioned in the story, for which “A” could be arrested. No one is making homosexuals wear striped prison uniforms with pink triangles in the US. Homosexuals can get married to each other in the United States, something which could put them on a searchable list if it came down to that, yet they’ve been unafraid. The credentialed media have been full of all sorts of stories about alternate lifestyles, the Inky among the leaders in that. Homosexual relationships seem to abound on television these days, and the only governments which seem interested in persecuting queers are the Islamic ones that our friends on the left apparently support.

And President Trump certainly had no round up of homosexuals during his first term.

It is amusing that the newspaper, which has editorialized in favor of greater gun control, has presented this story to us. Maybe now they’ll be more in favor of the Second Amendment now that homosexuals are more paranoid.

“A” can go right ahead with her paranoia! If she purchased her firearm legally, and plans to apply for a concealed carry license, more power to her; I absolutely support her right to keep and bear arms! Do you think the Inky will, too?