PACKING: After Orlando, LGBT Crowd Defies Obama, Exercises Rights For every action, there is a reaction. Its supposed to be equal and opposite, and following the tragic killing via semi-automatic weapon of 49 people who were just trying to have a good time Saturday night, the target group gays and lesbians are looking for a way to ensure their own safety. Like all good Americans do after a terrorist attack, the nations homosexuals are turning to firearms (guns, rifles, etc.) in large numbers. According to the people tracking the upswing in firearms sales following Orlando, The Pink Pistols, a national gun club for gays and lesbians, picked up 2,000 new members (1,500 to 3,500) from Saturday night to Monday morning with new chapters starting up all over the country. Firearms sellers are seeing more gays and lesbians in their stores. Background checks are taking hours due to the backlog of applications. Mike Smith, a firearms instructor in Colorado Springs, is one of many closely tracking the sudden surge in gays and lesbians buying weapons. I think right now because of what happened, people are looking for answers, he said. You walk into a gun shop and you expect to see people, frankly, who look like me. I think we forget were a country of all people, not just people who fit that predetermined mold. Firearms dealers like Smith are helping the LGBT crowd find their footing in a part of American life in which they have not participated much. Truth be told, normally, LGBTs are on the other side of the argument. However, as they are the group that was targeted this time, it is only natural for them to seek to protect themselves as Americans have done for 240 years: with a gun. Far from joining the cry from the political left for more and tighter gun control laws, it is refreshing to see American gays and lesbians take their safety into their own hands and arm themselves. Personal safety is nothing to mess with. And that equal and opposite reaction to the Orlando act of terrorism was not what Barack Obama, the United Nations, or any other elitist source wanted it to be. 