By Dave Workman | Senior Editor
Piper Smith.
For 32-year-old Piper Smith, Armed Equality is an effort that just makes sense, and she’s determined to see it grow.
A San Diego, CA, native, Smith founded the project just after the terror attack at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando in an effort to reach out to the LGBT community and raise awareness about the importance of personal protection. Now, some three years later, Armed Equality has about 2,500 members “all over the world” with the bulk of them in the United States. About half of that number is in California, she said.
Already hoping to attend the annual Gun Rights Policy Conference in September, in Phoenix, Smith said the title Armed Equality is already trademarked, and she is looking to make the organization grow. With a background in marketing, she already knows the nuts and bolts of outreach, and she has already attended the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show and the National Rifle Association annual meeting this year.
Piper Smith with John Correia and the LGBT Gadsden flag.
Acknowledging that the LGBT community traditionally leans to the left politically, Smith said part of the reason for that is because gays have not always been treated well by conservatives, so they gravitate to where the welcome mat is normally out.
“It’s easy to understand why so many have gravitated to the arms of the left,” she said via email. “It has led many to adopt a poorly examined anti-Second Amendment perspective.”
Smith said she seeks to bridge these “unnecessary traditional divides, help LGBT Americans protect themselves, and grow the next generation of the Second Amendment community.”
Armed Equality’s major presence is on Facebook. There, one finds the mission statement that explains the group’s focus is on strengthening the self-defense skills of LGBT individuals. The group is “not quite there” in terms of offering paid memberships, but she said supporters “seem eager to fund event-specific Facebook and GoFundMe fundraisers for volunteer outreach, activism, and travel.”
“We facilitate armed and unarmed self-defense training and other similar events with vetted LGBT supportive instructors and businesses,” the Armed Equality statement notes.
The group is not open to anyone who cannot legally possess a firearm or ammunition, and the group provides an opportunity for networking with local LGBT-inclusive firearms instructors, shops and self-defense legal protection companies, she said.
Smith said members of the group have enjoyed training opportunities and they all share a common appreciation for firearms safety and personal protection.
“Traditionally,” she said during a conversation at the National Rifle Association convention in Indianapolis—Smith is an NRA Life Member— “the LGBT community is a very soft target. They haven’t embraced self-defense.”
Yet, the LGBT community is “statistically in dire need of self-defense,” Smith acknowledged.
In a March 2018 interview with San Diego’s KUSI, Smith told reporter Ginger Jeffries that the solution to violent crime is not necessarily tied to the adoption of more restrictive gun laws.
“Just because we have a problem doesn’t mean another law will bring an effective solution,” Smith remarked.
A group of Armed Equality members gathered for a training event.
While Armed Equality was certainly preceded by the Pink Pistols, each group has its purpose. Armed Equality aims much of its attention toward LGBT millennials. Smith, who served in the Air Force until she received an injury, said the pro-self-defense perspective is expanding. She volunteers regularly to assist people who have been victims of hate crimes. She helps facilitate the filing of police reports and helps them connect with LGBT liaison officers.
Having majored in Political Science in college, Smith has a firm grasp on the political nature of the firearms debate. Gun rights, she said, are civil rights, and that approach seems to be at the heart of the Armed Equality effort. There has been a shift in attitude about self-defense since the Pulse attack, as people in the LGBT community realized, perhaps for the first time, that in an emergency, they’re responsible for their own safety. While the LGBT community as a whole may not have instantly embraced the concept of self-defense, a fair number of people within that community are bucking history. Ergo, the growing Armed Equality movement.
Smith said she has helped many LGBT individuals in their California CCW process in San Diego County with great success and she credits the work done by Michael Schwartz and the San Diego County Gun Owners (SDCGO) for making that possible.
An outdoor shooting event attracted about a dozen participants with all sorts of firearms. That’s Piper Smith holding an M1 Garand.
“They’re the reason why people are able to get CCW permits in San Diego County,” she said unabashedly. “I never thought I’d be able to obtain a permit in California.”
She said it has been “life changing” in several positive ways.
“Most of my now closest friends I have met through these volunteer efforts,” Smith noted. “Being able to surround myself with amazing people who are eager to accept fellow liberty-loving individuals has been truly amazing. It has also been beneficial in assisting to heal wounds I suffered at the hands of brutal anti-LGBT discrimination years ago.”
She said Armed Equality’s efforts “seek to bridge (an) unnecessary division within modern America.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” she observed, “and on top of that, the Second Amendment needs to be defended by all Americans, of all varieties.’We The People’ means all of us, and Armed Equality is real equality.”
