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LGBTQ gun club forms to combat growing popularity of far right in the US

It’s in response to the rise of the Far Right in the US. In a small field near to the Canadian border, the newly formed Trigger Warning Queer & Trans Gun Club meet. Lore McSpadden had never even touched a gun before joining the club: “We’re acknowledging our fear of a world in which conservatives are the only ones who are armed.” The 18 paid-up members are all LGBTQ, meeting once a month to shoot still targets and clay pigeons. But the light mood affronts the incident that led to the group’s creation last winter when vandals burned two homes’ rainbow flags in this area, straight after the presidential election. Gun club member Jake Allen wants to push back from the idea that LGBT people are weak and defenceless, “I want white supremacists and neo-Nazis to know that queer people are taking steps necessary to protect themselves.” About a dozen people in a field don’t exactly represent a vanguard of a newly armed left – but the group isn’t alone, with interest for other clubs coming from across the country. Scott Fearing, from Out Alliance, isn’t concerned by the idea of trying to fight guns with more guns. “Is an arms race what we really want? What we know in any arms race is that it’s never good for anybody.” But Trigger Warning members stress that this isn’t an arms race. They are about empowerment and self-defence, not offence.