D.C. police have arrested three suspects in connection to an anti-gay beating that happened over the weekend. Here’s how the victim’s partner described the attack to the Washington Blade:
The rising rates of hate crime reports in D.C. provide ample evidence that violent intolerance still lingers in some pockets of society. It also serves as a reminder that D.C.’s draconian anti-gun laws ignore the very real threats that all of its residents face. Among other things, these laws strip gay people of our right to defend ourselves from hate.
Perhaps this particular incident wouldn’t have been stopped if D.C. allowed residents to more easily exercise their Second Amendment rights, but it likely would have at least prevented some of the hundreds of recorded hate crimes in the District over the last five years. Remember, you don’t actually have to fire or even point a gun to benefit from its protection. Guns are used in self-defense somewhere between 500,000 and 3,000,000 times a year in the United States. But because law-abiding gun ownership is severely restricted in D.C., guns here are used mostly in crimes.
D.C. all-but barred residents from obtaining concealed carry licenses until 2017, when a federal court struck down the policy as unconstitutional. Yet the city’s rules are still extremely stringent, and it’s estimated that only a few thousand licenses have been issued. Even those with licenses cannot bring a weapon with them in federal government buildings, properties on or adjacent to a school campus, all public transportation, stadiums, public gatherings, and so on. In fact, residents can barely carry legally anywhere outside their own property, essentially nullifying their ability to defend themselves during everyday life.
For gay people and others targeted by hate crimes — as well as everyday residents in a city with a high crime rate — this could prove deadly. The city must make it easier for law-abiding residents to exercise our right to self-defense. Excessively strict gun laws clearly don’t make D.C. any safer, as it’s still got high murder rates that police tie to illegal firearm access by criminals. Yet the city’s laws do make it much harder for law-abiding citizens to defend ourselves, and that’s simply unacceptable.
Gay culture, too, must change. Right now, gays, lesbians, and bisexuals are only half as likely as others to own a gun. And we’re not just opting out of exercising our rights — there’s all-out hostility in the gay community toward guns.
As National Rifle Association social media manager William McLaughlin writes in the Washington Post, D.C.’s gay community is largely anti-gun, even jeering the NRA during June pride rallies. He cites increases in rates of hate crime reports and asks, “If we in the gay community know we are frequent targets, why do we overwhelmingly oppose laws that protect our right to defend ourselves?”
McLaughlin gets it exactly right. In the face of lingering hate, D.C.’s gay community needs to reclaim our right to self-defense and demand that the city starts respecting it.
