Bloggasm

Jeff Soyer describes himself as a “gay gun nut” and has turned that into a franchise via his blog Alphecca.com. Shunned by all but a handful of “gay” bloggers, he has found acceptance within the pro-2nd Amendment community as one of the tireless defenders of the right to keep and bear arms. His “Weekly Check on the Bias” of media regarding firearm issues has been a weekly feature at Alphecca for nearly four years and he does the report live every Tuesday on the NRA’s NRA News radio broadcast with the host of the show, Cam Edwards, heard by thousands on Sirius Satellite Radio and streamed on the web. At 51-years-old, Jeff lives in a rural part of Vermont, shuns travel except within Vermont and New Hampshire, and works for a medium sized, gay owned furniture manufacturer. On Thursday evenings, a goodly number of the company’s employees (including several officers of the company) gather at a local range to make a lot of noise. Jeff thinks he’s in heaven.

Simon Owens: Since you describe yourself as a gay gun nut, we’re going to start with a few obvious questions. Obviously, as a gun nut, you probably come into contact with many other gun nuts, and since many gun nuts are socially conservative, how has their reactions been to you? Have they rejected you because of your gay status, or have you seen a kind of “Hmm, maybe gay people aren’t so bad after all if they like guns” kind of response?

Jeff Soyer: At the gun stores I frequent, at all the ranges I’ve gone to — all the firearm enthusiasts I’ve met in person or via Alphecca, I’ve never ever had anyone distance themselves from me, make any sort of comment about me (at least that I’ve heard or heard about) and darn-near all of them read my site. Now, do they all “approve” of my “lifestyle”? I certainly doubt it but in Northern New England, you don’t diss someone to their face. Yet they all call me, “Want to go to the range this weekend?”, and so on. One thing about living rurally — there are too few people around to get into hating any of them. I’ve heard plenty of anti-gay remarks and worse when I lived in urban areas. I’ve never heard it — to my face, anyway — in this area.

Further, there IS a fraternity feeling about firearm enthusiasts. We’re all into it. We like plinking and blasting at targets and discussing and trying out new guns, cartridges, grips, and so on. When you hang out at ranges — and for six months a year I’m there 1-2 times a week — everyone is into helping everyone else, trying each other’s firearms, discussing stance, technique, and so on.

Here’s something else. As the result of occassional, stupid comments by a very rare few, people have the idea that the NRA is homophobic. That’s absolute bullshit. As an organization, they have only one concern; protecting our 2nd Amendment rights. Are there some members who don’t like gays? Sure. There are some members of the NAACP and the ACLU and the Democratic Party who don’t like gays. So what? I know for a fact that one of the lawyers employed by the NRA in it’s ILA (Institute of Legislative Affairs) is openly gay. I know for a real fact that the NRA links to Alphecca (meaning me) and allows me to do a segment every Tuesday on their national radio show. They even have my picture up for the 21 hours before the Tuesday show starts. In fact, they pay me for my segment. Does that sound like a homophobic organization?

Simon Owens: Many special interest groups that deal with controversial issues oppose any legislation that limits their cause, even if they don’t necessarily agree with it completely. For instance, in terms of partial-birth abortion (and I label it this grudgingly, since “partial-birth abortion” was a term made up by conservatives, and is incredibly misleading), many pro-choice people might not agree that it’s a good thing, yet they fight the incremental approach because they recognize that pro-life groups are trying to chip away at a woman’s choice to have an abortion. The same goes for gun legislation. But if it weren’t for the incremental approach, would you agree that at least *some* gun control is necessary?

Jeff Soyer: The fact is that there IS a “slippery slope” and we’ve seen it time and again. Outside the U.S. we’ve seen England, Australia, and others who have, through the years, enact more and more restrictions, regulations, and outright bans of firearms. Not coincidentally, their crime rate increases as criminals become emboldened because they face victims who are prohibited from defending themselves.

I believe that if someone has not been convicted of a violent crime, that is — they are “law abiding”, then they should be allowed to own whatever guns they would like.

I actually think the national instant background check conducted by gun dealers is fine. The FBI looks you up to see if you are a convicted felon or have restraining orders against you and gives the dealer a Yes or No for the sale. That’s pretty much all the gun control I think is necessary. I think it is obscene that some few states and municipalities think you need to “show cause” for why you want a handgun, or to carry a handgun, and by the way, most of them do not accept “for personal defense” as a valid reason. In some states, such as New Jersey and Delaware, you can be turned down at the whim of a police chief or judge if they don’t like you or consider you a “moral” person. Gay people were routinely turned down for such permits in many states not that long ago.

Simon Owens: By your own definition, you’re part of two very vocal groups: Gays and gun-supporters. Is there a group that you feel that you belong to more?

Jeff Soyer: In Vermont, native gays are fine with firearms. They grew up with them and hunt with them and control garden pests with them. All the “arrivals” are of the leftist-lockstep-liberal variety who love Vermont if it just weren’t for the pesky natives. They are the ones who bring their “let’s regulate everything to death” mentality to the state and want to enact gun control. They far outnumber the native gays at this point and they have never embraced my point of view.

Within the blogosphere, only about 5 gay bloggers link to me. A couple hundred pro-gun, libertarian type bloggers link to me. You do the math! I feel much more comfortable and welcome moving in firearm enthusiast circles than in gay circles.

Simon Owens: Are there any guns or gun parts that are currently illegal that you’d like to get your hands on?

Jeff Soyer: Not really. There are guns I’d like to have but don’t have the money for at present but since the demise of the silly “Assault Weapons Ban” I can pretty much buy what I want. The AWB, as it was called, had nothing to do with the operation of the rifle and everything to do with cosmetics. Remember (as most media reporters don’t) that fully automatic firearms (i.e. machine guns) weren’t covered by the AWB. They have strict license requirements since the ’30′s of the last century by the federal government. The AWB concerned regular semi-automatic rifles (one shot fired for each pull of the trigger) that looked scary to anti-gun lawmakers. Features such as a pistol grip or a collapsable stock. Things that had no bearing on the actual operation of the gun.

Simon Owens: Are there any gay blogs that you read? How about any favorite gay writers like David Sedaris or Mart Crowley?

Jeff Soyer: There are lots of terrific blogs out there but time is limited. I only read the blogs on my blogroll — composed of bloggers who blogroll me — and there are a few gay blogs on there. I almost never read “gay fiction” because I always find the “gay angst” of the characters rather whiny. I read a lot, otherwise, and don’t pay much attention to the sexuality of the author.

Simon Owens: Where do you get most your gun news outside of the internet?

Jeff Soyer: Actually, I pretty much get all of my gun news via the internet at this point. I buy a few magazines, listen to Cam Edwards (of course!) and go to gun stores and shows to see and feel the latest and greatest in firearms.

Simon Owens: Do you believe that both sides of the gun control issue like to twist statistics in order to prove their points? Or there any examples of this you can think of?

Jeff Soyer: think EVERYONE, on both sides of every issue pick-and-choose statistics to make their points. No one, including the compilers of those statistics are unbiased.

Simon Owens: You said in your email to me that you wouldn’t recommend five bloggers because you didn’t want to snub other bloggers, but are there any blogs that you would recommend that would supplement the understanding of your own blog?

Jeff Soyer: Almost everyone on my blogroll! We’re all sort of a clique. I’m not the most “linky” of bloggers in the sense that I feature a lot of posts that are just links to what others are writing. Not because I don’t respect what others are doing, just that I don’t have the time or energy to do so. Having said that, I do try to highlight what other like-minded bloggers are writing about at least a few times a week. In general, though, just randomly clicking various folks on my “BlogFriends” blogroll will take your readers to some vary good stuff — most of it better than what I’m doing.

Simon Owens: Do you ever encounter gun enthusiasts that are so nutty that you wonder whether or not everyone should be allowed to have guns after all?

Jeff Soyer: I haven’t personally met any but then this is a rural area. Certainly I’ve READ some things by or about some people who I wouldn’t like to meet but frankly, that’s always after the fact. The mutants who (and it really is rather a rare event) go on a shooting spree are almost always described by their neighbors as “nice, quiet types” and not the “nutty” types.

You can decide (as anti-gun types have) that you have to ban all gun ownership because a very few MIGHT snap. Or you can decide that laws shouldn’t be aimed at preventing the many normal people because of the possible actions of the mental few. Do we ban automobile ownership because a tiny percentage of drivers cause 45 thousand deaths a year on our highways or do we instead say, “Okay, if you break the law with your car, we will punish you severely?” I prefer the latter approach towards gun ownership. And if you say, “Well, some guns are just not meant to be owned by civilians or are only designed for criminal use” then I will ask you if some cars are just not meant to be owned by civilians because they have big, high-horsepower engines, wide tires, spoilers, etc because they are obviously meant to break our traffic laws (such as speed limits) with?

Simon Owens: What kind of compromises would you be willing to reach with strong supporters of gun control?

Jeff Soyer: None. What kind of compromise would your readers be willing to reach with those who would like to limit abortions? How about freedom of speech? (And for those who say that “speech” never killed anyone, I would point out that a couple cartoons about Mohammed sparked riots around the world and resulted in numerous deaths. I would point out that on many college campuses, there are “hate speech” codes because the supporters of same suggest that such speech leads to violence against some minorities.)

Gun ownership is both a constitutional right and a human right. Should we take out the teeth or claws of lions, bears, other animals so they can’t defend themselves? A human has the right to protect and defend his own life, that of his loved ones, and his property. In many areas of this country, there are wolves at the door — mutants who want to assault you to rape you, take what is yours, bash you because of your skin color or sexual orientation, destroy our country because we aren’t of their religion. They are not willing to limit themselves to their physical “arms” and neither should we law-abiding be asked to depend on ours. Chicago and Washington DC are examples of municipalities that don’t allow their “subjects” to own guns. Both cities are perennially at the top of our nation’s violent crime statistics.

The average response time of the police — if you even have the time to call 911 in an emergency — is, well, in DC it’s 11 minutes. A violent thug can do a lot to you and your family in 11 minutes. No thanks — I prefer to take my personal defense…Personally! I will never
compromise on that.