Here are a few stories about gay bashing. After reading them think to yourself what could I have done in that situation. Then leave a comment and let us know if you think gays should start carrying guns to protect them themselves.
Four say they were attacked by gay-bashing thugs in the South End:
The victims, four friends in their mid-20s, told South End News that they were walking home at around 2:45 a.m., along Columbus Avenue, somewhere between Dartmouth and West Canton streets, after a night clubbing at the Roxy in downtown. One of the victims, a Jamaica Plain woman named Jenna, said that she and her friends heard a group of men shouting at them from a parked white sedan. They kept walking, but before they could go far, the four men got out of their car and started coming towards them.
"I saw the men getting out of the car, and I approached them first and said, ’Just get back in your car... We’re just heading home,’" said Jenna, who asked that South End News withhold her last name. "They were like, ’Fuck you, your fucking friends are faggots,’ and one of them punched me in the face."
When her two friends, Scott Cain of the South End and John of Jamaica Plain, who also asked to withhold his last name, came to her aid, the attackers turned on them. Two of them began beating Cain and another kicked John in the face repeatedly as he lay on the ground, shouting "Fuck you, faggots" throughout the attack. Jeffrey, the fourth friend who also asked to withhold his last name, was furthest away from the incident and was not directly involved in the physical confrontation.
The attackers ran back to their car, Jenna said, when she pulled her phone out and threatened to call the police. She ran after them and dialed 911 on her cell phone; when an operator answered, she shouted the license plate number of the car into the phone.
"I was screaming it repeatedly into the phone over and over again," said Jenna. "That’s when the guys in the car yelled, ’Bitch, you better move or I’m going to hit you.’" She jumped out of the way, and the car sped off.
After the attackers fled, Jenna and Jeffrey found John lying unconscious on the sidewalk, but Cain was nowhere in sight. They were able to reach him moments later on his cell phone; he was in his Massachusetts Avenue apartment, but had no idea how he got there.
"I woke up in my apartment, completely covered in blood, like from the movies," said Cain, who said that he could not remember the assault itself or the immediate aftermath.
Via MySouthEnd.com
After reading that story do you think the beating could have been stopped by showing a gun or would it have made it worse?
Is a Burger at Corner Bistro Worth a Black Eye?:
It was nearing midnight last Friday when I stepped into Corner Bistro, the burgers-and-beer hangout for West Villagers who’ve emptied their last dark ’n stormy at Beatrice Inn. I was with my boyfriend and three other friends. Hungry and thirsty, we settled down at a table near the front door, waiting for service. We came for an order of fries, but left with a black eye, a few welts, and an employee screaming “faggots” as he threw me to the floor.
I’ve been contemplating writing about what happened for five days now. Did bringing up a recently buried “attack story” make me sound like a self-righteous victim or, worse, a whiny pussy? Had there been no homophobic rhetoric, would this be lumped in with the rest of the nonsense that transpires in New York after dark? Worse, was I ruining my chances of ever tasting another Bistro burger?
The recap: My boyfriend sat down at a four-top. A man—a busboy or a waiter, definitely not a host—told him that our group couldn’t sit down. “You have to order food,” he said. “We’ll start with fries,” said my boyfriend, not moving. The man then grabbed the back of his shirt, at which point I reached in, instinctively, to take his hand away. I was then thrown down, the side of my head the last thing to hit the ground. There was some confusion as my boyfriend tried to stop the whole thing, and was then punched in the face, while the Bistro worker screamed “faggots” a few times, for good measure.
Via BlackBook and gothamist
This story is a little different because it was in a bistro but the question is still the same do you think showing a gun would have stopped this "fag hater" or would it make the situation worse for the victim?
A Gay-Bashing in the East Sixth 'Dead Zone':
Just after 2am on May 29, Jack Culverhouse was standing outside Emo's on East Sixth Street talking with a group of friends, waiting for another friend who had just played a gig inside to load her equipment into her car. Three men walked by – athletic, clean-cut, in their mid-20s, Culverhouse and others say – one of them talking on a cell phone. As they passed the group, Cell Phone Man leaned over and reached under the skirt of one of Culverhouse's friends, grabbing her. "He was laughing and being cheeky," as he walked away, telling whoever was on the other end of the phone line that he'd "just got up this girl's skirt," Culverhouse said.
But the girl screamed and Cell Phone Man turned back toward her as if, Culverhouse said, he might hit her. Culverhouse stepped between the two to stop the advance. "He still had his phone in his right hand and with his left he just sucker punches me and runs off," Culverhouse said. "I went from shocked to immediately pissed off." Culverhouse followed the man, who'd caught up with his friends. "I just wanted him to look at me – I was trying to figure out why he hit me." The man's friend turned to face Culverhouse and stopped short, staring. "You fucking dyke," Culverhouse recalled him saying. "Are you a man? Are you a woman? I don't know if I should hit you or not."
Culverhouse sighed; it certainly wasn't the first time that had happened. Culverhouse is transgendered – born female but identifying as male and maintaining a male identity. "I didn't think he was going to hit me," he said. "I think, 'He's just going to have to say "dyke" 10 more times.'" Emo's bouncer Lane Anton saw what was happening and approached Culverhouse. "I was trying to pull [Culverhouse] back into the club," he said. But the man ran toward them and punched Anton, knocking him to the pavement, before turning to Culverhouse. "He grabbed me, punched me, and took me down on the pavement," Culverhouse recalled. His head cracked into the pavement, and the second man, "held me down by my hair, [his] other hand on my back, while [Cell Phone Man] kicked me in the head and on my side."
In short, the altercation triggered by the man's initial assault had turned into a melee, a chaotic brawl that raises new questions about how – and where – Austin police patrol downtown's entertainment district.
According to Anton, several Emo's employees joined the group of women and other onlookers, trying – without success – to break up the fight, which was growing in intensity and spilling into the roadway. Several long minutes into the brawl, one of Culverhouse's friends spotted an APD officer standing nearby, watching, Culverhouse said. The friend ran over to the cop, imploring him to help. "You need to get over there," the friend allegedly said, but the officer wouldn't intervene. "What do you want me to do, go get my ass kicked?" he says the cop asked.
"Well, you could at least call some fucking back-up," Culverhouse's friend said before returning to try to help break up the fight. The fight continued until someone yelled out that they'd called the cops, Anton recalled, and Cell Phone Man and his friend ran off.
But the cops never came.
Via The Austin Chronicle
Now what do you think? Do you think if someone would have had a gun that guy would have ran off. Do you think it would have made it worse?
Please leave a comment and lets have a discussion about this very important topic. If you have a story of your own please tell us and let us know if you think it would have helped if you would have had a gun in your hand.
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