The Pink Pistols

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Daytona Beach, FL, 15 September 2025: All deaths are tragic, and all murders are crimes. Who the victim was, what his politics were, or what he was saying at the time of his murder are as irrelevant as what clothes he was wearing. To argue otherwise is to condone crime when politically convenient, and Operation Blazing Sword – Pink Pistols (“OBS-PP”) finds this monstrous, unethical, and hypocritical.

Although our organization advocates solely for the Second Amendment and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, OBS-PP staunchly supports all Constitutional Rights, including the vigorous exercise of Free Speech. Whatever Mr. Kirk’s opinions regarding queer people, he had the right to express them peacefully. Those who claim to cherish liberty yet celebrate his murder reveal they cherish expedience over principle. OBS-PP condemns both Mr. Kirk’s murder and the celebrations surrounding it in the strongest possible terms, and solemnly affirms our purely defensive mission. The murderer, and those who cheer him, do not represent us, our ethics, or our mission. Our hearts go out to Mr. Kirk’s family for their tragic loss.

Accusations that the murderer was tied to a Salt Lake City Pink Pistols chapter are false. No such chapter exists now, nor did one exist at the time of Mr. Kirk’s death. From 2020 to 2021, a University of Utah student named Ermiya Fanaeian ran a Salt Lake City chapter. While initially welcomed, she began using the Pink Pistols name to promote broader political issues, violating our rule that we are a single-issue organization devoted solely to the safe, legal, and responsible use of firearms by the queer community. In 2021, her group and Pink Pistols parted ways, and she renamed her organization Armed Queers of Salt Lake City. From that point forward, she no longer represented Pink Pistols, and the Salt Lake City chapter was formally listed as defunct on our website, where it remains. Any Utah-labeled social media tied to her group did not and does not represent Pink Pistols.

To restate the facts plainly:
• Ms. Fanaeian parted ways with Pink Pistols in 2021. She has had no involvement with us since.
• Any social media accounts calling for or celebrating violence are not affiliated with OBS-PP.
• OBS-PP abhors all violence, particularly violence that denies rights to any person or group.
• We extend our sincere condolences to the Kirk family for their devastating loss.

Operation Blazing Sword, Inc. is a grassroots 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to helping queer people become responsible firearm owners by maintaining a database of over 1,900 queer-friendly volunteer firearm educators located in every state of the USA. It also submits legal briefs (amicus curiae) to protect the rights of not just queer people, but all peaceable citizens, to have access to the most effective tools for self-defense. www.blazingsword.org

Pink Pistols, a division of Operation Blazing Sword, is dedicated to the legal, safe, and responsible use of firearms for self-defense of the gender and sexual minority community. www.pinkpistols.org

Media Contact: Ms. Erin Palette, 386-401-0386 (text), erin@blazingsword.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Correction, 28 August 2025: An earlier version of this release included the shooter’s name. In keeping with our policy of denying notoriety to mass murderers, we have removed it. The focus must remain on the victims, their families, and the community.

Daytona Beach, FL, 27 August 2025: Operation Blazing Sword – Pink Pistols (“Pink Pistols”) condemns the senseless actions taken by a mass murderer against Annunciation Catholic School and Church. None of the killer’s actions reflect in any manner the purposes of Pink Pistols. The gender identity of the shooter is immaterial, and any connection to this clearly mentally ill and suicidal individual must not be laid upon the LGBTQ community as a whole. Pink Pistols categorically and unequivocally condemns, denounces, and repudiates any such actions that are attributed to the LGBTQ community as a whole.

It is clear from the published manifesto that this criminal was extremely homicidal and suicidal. However, there are thousands of law-abiding LGBTQ gun owners who live peaceful lives despite being labeled as deviant, mentally ill, and other derogatory terms simply for living as their authentic selves and loving one another. It is criminals who commit crimes, not people of a specific race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or any other demographic subset. We at Pink Pistols strive, both as individual members and as a group, to overcome this social stigma and to defend ourselves by every legal means necessary. The motto of Pink Pistols, “Armed Queers Don’t Get Bashed,” explains our ethos succinctly.

At no other time in recent history has the fight for both transgender rights and firearm rights been more critical. We have seen legislation banning critical gender-affirming care, preventing many transgender people from living happy, authentic lives. We have also seen legislation, in reaction to NYSRPA v. Bruen, banning the lawful carry of firearms, preventing many people from protecting themselves from life-ending and happiness destroying violence.

Pink Pistols believes it is the natural right of all people, including LGBTQ people, to be able to protect themselves and their loved ones against criminal violence. Furthermore, Pink Pistols denounces any non-defensive use of violence perpetrated in our name.

Operation Blazing Sword, Inc. is a grass-roots 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to helping queer people become responsible firearm owners through volunteer education by maintaining a database of over 1500 queer-friendly firearm volunteer educators residing in every state of the USA. It also submits legal briefs (Amicus Curiae) to protect the rights of not just queer people, but all peaceable citizens, to have access to the most effective tools for self-defense. www.blazingsword.org

Pink Pistols, a division of Operation Blazing Sword, is dedicated to the legal, safe, and responsible use of firearms for self-defense of the gender and sexual minority community. www.pinkpistols.org

Media Contact: Erin Palette, 386-401-0386 (text), erin@blazingsword.org

Download PDF version: OBS Minneapolis PresserV2

Over the past six months, the Atlanta Chapter of the Pink Pistols has been doing amazing things for its members.

While everyone was still reeling from the Club Q shooting in November of 22, Pink Pistols Atlanta held a Stop The Bleed class in early December, which was taught by local firefighters and paramedics from the organization Frontline Medical Defense.

 

The current average response time of emergency services in the city of Atlanta is 9.5 minutes, yet traumatic blood loss can render a victim unconscious in less than a minute. Stop The Bleed, designed by the American College of Surgeons and promoted by the Department of Homeland Security, follows the principle of “You Are the Help Until Help Arrives” by teaching the medical skills associated with bleeding control and stabilizing victims of violent trauma prior to emergency services arriving.

18 members of the Atlanta chapter were taught how to apply a tourniquet, when to pack a wound versus when to ventilate it, and what order of operations to follow when stabilizing patients to prevent blood loss. This class empowered those members with the skills and knowledge necessary to protect themselves and others in an increasingly dangerous word.

In January, the Atlanta chapter relaunched its annual Introduction to Pistols class, which has been on hiatus due to the COVID-19 lockdown. Last offered in January 2020, this class provides a safe and low-cost environment for members and guests to learn firearm safety and the principles of pistol shooting by certified instructors.

Conducted at the Quickshot Shooting Range in Buckhead, GA, this course consists of three hours of classroom time covering the safe handling of pistols, instruction of the mechanical components and common faults within handguns, pistol marksmanship techniques, and the consideration which must be made prior to arming oneself.

Following the classroom portion and practice with simulated firearms, participants were provided with one hour of structured range time to practice what they learned, and get comfortable with a few types of pistols and revolvers.

This past April, Pink Pistols Atlanta offered a private Everyday Carry class for its members, focusing on lawful concealed carry with an emphasis on techniques for those that intend to carry a handgun daily. The instructor, Edgar Mills of Osprey Shooting Solutions, has worked with Pink Pistols members in the past, but this was the chapter’s first formal partnership with him for private instruction.

This course included two hours of classroom time, which covered safe handling, variations in carry holsters and positions, changes to traditional safety rules when handling a firearm outside a gun range, and legal considerations for concealed carry and drawing a firearm in self defense. Following the classroom portion, participants were provided with five hours of structured range time at a private facility to practice what they learned, with a focus on drawing from concealment and engaging threats with their own firearm.

Both Stop The Bleed and Introduction to Pistols were financially sponsored by Operation Blazing Sword, Pink Pistols’ parent organization, making these classes free to attend by members of the Atlanta chapter. Osprey Shooting Solutions offered a discounted rate for its Everyday Carry class, with additional financial support from Operation Blazing Sword.

If your Pink Pistols chapter is interested in hosting classes like these, please do the following:

1. Find an instructor and venue.
2. Contact Erin Palette, President of Operation Blazing Sword, with the class invoice(s) for approval.
3. If approved, Operation Blazing Sword will pay the invoices.
4. Conduct the class.
5. Submit a written report of the event, ideally with pictures. Please ensure that consent to be photographed is given.

When considering a class, first talk to your members. It may be that one or more of them are already instructors, and someone may be able to provide space for the class.

 

 

 

Pride month begins this week, and so Operation Blazing Sword – Pink Pistols is proud to announce that we have tri-fold information pamphlets for download. They are double sided, with one side for Operation Blazing Sword and the other for Pink Pistols. Print them out for your table, or grab a handful and pass them around to Pride attendees!

To anticipate a question, “Why Say Queer?” and “Full Circle Support” are deliberately on both sides. Someone may not think to look at the back, or the flyers may be printed out as a single-sided and unfolded sheet, and the repetition ensures that an important message is seen (“Queer”) and the other org is listed (“Circle”) so that the viewer knows to look for more information.

Special thanks to David Bock and Tiffany Reynolds for their help in making this project a reality.

Gatekeeping: When someone takes it upon themselves to decide who does or does not have access or rights to a community or identity.

I’m going to explain why gatekeeping hurts us and why I and the other mods won’t tolerate it here, and I’m going to use queer dynamics to illustrate it.

• Gay and Lesbian people think that Transgender people shouldn’t be under the LGBTQ tent because “being transgender isn’t a sexual orientation, it’s a gender issue”.
• Yet Transgender people say that Gays and Lesbians have it easy because they don’t stand out in everyday life, and besides it’s socially acceptable to be homosexual these days, so if anything trans folks are more oppressed and deserve more representation, not less.
• And I could point out that Gays and Lesbians don’t actually get along, but I’ll go one step further and tell you that subcultures within each don’t even get along. For example, we have Bears (masculine homosexual men) who deride Twi nks (feminine homosexual men) for being “too fa ggy”, and we have Lipstick Lesbians (feminine homosexual women) who look down on Dy kes (masculine homosexual women) for being “too bu tch”.
• Meanwhile, practically everyone hates Bisexual people due to a combination of unfounded fear that the Bi person will be unsatisfied with only one type of genital and cheat/wander/leave their SOs and jealousy that a bi person can adopt a hetero-normative lifestyle and reap all the benefits without suffering any of the ill effects.
• Then there are the Trans people who pass (“go stealth”) who just want to be thought of as men instead of transmen/women instead of transwomen, and they are called cowards by the “out and proud” Trans people who feel that trans acceptance will only happen if we are visible to the world. The stealthers regard the outers as attention whores and drama queens who are setting back trans acceptance by being outrageous.
• (In fact, there’s an amazingly accurate parallel between stealth vs. loud and concealed carry vs. open carry.)
• Then there are the Aces (asexuals) and Aros (aromantics) who no one really knows what to do with because “What kind of social oppression do they face?” Apparently, if they aren’t being victimized for their sexuality then they don’t “count” as authentically queer to some people.
• Want to refine it even further? Let’s bring race into the mix. QPOC (that’s “queer people of color”) have to deal with being a racial minority as well as being a gender and/or sexual minority, so all of us with racial privilege should let them do all the talking.
• How about class? If you’re poor and you’re trans you’re going to have a much harder time transitioning (if you can transition at all) because therapy and hormones and surgery take more money than they can afford.

I could continue, but you get the idea.

The moment we start gatekeeping is the moment this group fractures around identity issues and an ever-tightening death spiral of ideological purity. If we say “Only queer people are allowed in the Pink Pistols” then that inevitably results in statements like “You vote Republican, you’re a traitor and not truly queer” or “You’re Bisexual, you can live a heteronormative lifestyle, you’re not truly queer” or “You’re a heterosexual stealth Trans, you don’t belong here, you aren’t properly queer” and so on until there’s only one person left standing who is “authentically queer” and the rest are just posers and traitors.

So we, the mods and admins of this page, say NO to this self-destructive course of action and instead encourage people to find ways to live with each other.

This is a group for pro-Second Amendment queer people and those who support them. It will always be that way. The only thing we ask is that if you are not queer in some manner that you be queer-positive. We won’t throw you out if you aren’t (but we will if you’re abusive to our queer members), although we warn you that making statements like “I don’t believe in your lifestyle, but…” will earn you as much popularity and acceptance as people who say “I believe in the Second Amendment, but…”

So to reiterate and reinforce:

• We don’t gatekeep against heterosexual people who consider themselves Pink Pistols.
• We don’t gatekeep against cisgender people who consider themselves Pink Pistols.
• We don’t gatekeep about race, or class, or religion, or anything else.

All of these inherently divisive positions must be set aside in favor of what we all have in common: Our desire to have the right to keep and bear arms and the right to use those arms to defend ourselves. Everything else is irrelevant to our mission.

Or, put more pithily, “Teaching queers to shoot does not imply that only queers can teach them, or that we can’t have straights in the organization.”

Which brings us to the word “ally”. Some of us (specifically Gwen Patton and myself, but there may well be others) want to take the term “ally” out behind the woodshed and treat it like the rabid dog it is. The only “allies” we have are from other organizations that do not consider themselves to be members of our organization; anyone inside the organization is one of us, period.

When someone is labelled “ally”, the assumption is that the person doing the labeling is stating “I’m the REAL member here. You’re just an ally, a second-class citizen.” It’s divisive, derisive, and demeaning, and it belittles those members who support us 100%, regardless of race, orientation, sex, gender, kinks, relationship structures or lack of the same, by telling them that they’re still outsiders here. That just reinforces the attitude that they’re not one of us and the pernicious idea that because they’re not us, we should exclude them, mock them, ignore them, neglect them or even hate them.

Our straight members aren’t just here to get us coffee, bow, and scrape. They’re 100% full members, just like us.

This is how it was when Doug Krick founded the Pink Pistols 20 years ago.

This is how it was when Gwen Patton was First Speaker.

This is how it will be with me as National Coordinator.

NO GATEKEEPING.

Erin Palette 

Operation Blazing Sword Founder & Pink Pistols Coordinator