AK-47 magazine 7.62x39
Dan Z. for TTAG

Three hours later, I was playing video games when my neighbor broke the glass by my front door with the butt of an assault rifle. I screamed and ran through my living room and out my back door. Shots rang out around me as I fled, and I could see the dust flying from their impact.

“He has a gun. He’s trying to kill me,” I yelled, clambering up and over my back fence. Barefoot and bleeding, I ran to the street to try to find a phone. I approached a car with some older white folks. Even as I was more terrified than I’d ever been in my life, I was extremely aware of the need to make them feel comfortable. After asking them to call 911, I insisted they hold the phone and put me on speaker. When I got through to the operator and told them I had been attacked, I repeated that my dogs were in my house. Please don’t hurt my dogs, I said again and again, all the while looking over my shoulder. I thought he was still after me. …

These days, I’m trying to alchemize my pain and trauma into actions. I’m joining support groups for survivors of gun violence and daring to dream that my state of New Mexico will implement changes that can save lives — especially banning assault weapons. I’ve had people tell me that this would’ve never happened had I been armed, but I don’t believe adding more weapons to this incident would have helped anyone. Given how often I jump at my own shadow, I don’t think having a deadly weapon is in anyone’s best interest. I believe responsible gun ownership exists, and I see no justification for folks owning assault weapons, bump stocks, or armor-piercing bullets. …

Gun violence is so rampant in my community that my story didn’t even make the local news; there was a triple homicide the same night. Realizing that being attacked by an assault weapon in my own home wasn’t even newsworthy opened my eyes to how rampant gun violence is in New Mexico. Since my attack, I’ve heard of other queer and trans people surviving similar things and not making the news. Following New Mexico’s gun-violence-riddled summer, our governor declared a public health emergency. I was initially elated at the news that there would be a 30-day ban on guns in public for my county, but the subsequent legal snares, armed protests, and calls for violence against the governor quickly burst that bubble. We can’t call ourselves a sanctuary for queer and trans people while simultaneously defending the rights of guns over human lives. The number of hate crimes against queer and trans people in the U.S. climbs steadily, as does the use of assault weapons in these attacks. These guns aren’t used to scare or harm; they’re used to annihilate. Fighting to ban assault weapons in my community, in this country, is my queer activism.

— Lazarus Letcher in I Survived an Armed Attack. This Is Why Gun Control Is My Queer Activism

 

108 COMMENTS

      • ,RE: ” I don’t think having a deadly weapon is in anyone’s best interest. I believe responsible gun ownership exists, and I see no justification for folks owning assault weapons, bump stocks, or armor-piercing bullets.”

        Rest assured there is much more to the story that is not being told. I.E. What ever happened to the perp who committed a laundry list of felonies and things of that nature that are suspiciously missing and seem not noteworthy to the victim-writer and now Gun Control proponent?

        The writer does a lot of word play just to imply Responsible Gun Owners have no use for assault weapons meaning if you have a so called Assault Weapon you are not in the responsible group and prone to shame…That would be Discrimination based due to the fact the writer is a full blown mealy mouth hypocrite like the armed guard assault weapon protected Gun Control governor he/she/it praises.
        https://youtube.com/watch?v=hur7Nmsh4-s&feature=shared

        • OK the parts of the story that matter are mentioned in the link. Nonetheless if the neighbor tried to run him down in the street with a two ton projectile motor vehicle you would never hear a word about banning motor vehicles…Hypocrite still fits so wear it Gun Control drama queen.

        • I hope if someone is ever shooting at me, they have a bump stock. Hard to shoot straight using one of those things.

    • Vim vam, vatever it calls itself has THREE DOGS and what good were they in this situation? Where they little worthless yappers? The crazy doped-up attacker didn’t even bother to shoot them with his AK when he was rampaging through the house. Even my scaredy orange cat would have been on his face with all claws out tearing his eyes out in this type of situation.

    • Yes, let’s round up all privately owned firearms in New Mexico. It would be highly illegal, wildly invasive, and the State lacks even a small fraction of the required resources. But what are a few minor inconveniences on the path to utopia? Everyone knows the strong never victimized the weak before firearms were invented.

  1. The truth ain’t in him.

    I doubt that entire story. Oh, and misgendering someone isn’t a hate crime. You don’t get to control my words.

    • Yeah, I have enough trouble remembering people’s names. I’m not throwing personal pronouns into the mix, especially when they are made up nonsense which they can change at will.

      I knew a guy with full beard who wanted to be they/them. Sorry, buddy, grow an extra head if you want that.

    • Rusty I’m with you on that. 1st A and all.
      I can call anyone anything I chose as long as it’s not a threat.
      Them attempting to rearrange my face adds another chapter to the story. Along with them screaming its hate speech.
      Even mean tweets are protected speech.

    • When someone snaps like that, there’s usually more to the story, and it’s usually entirely sad and mundane. “My neighbor shot up my place after I let my dogs out to shit on his lawn without cleaning it up for the 1000th time” gets you more sympathy than “my neighbor attacked me because I’m trans.” Not saying that’s the way it happened, or that violence would be justified if it did happen that way, but that’s the way is usually happens.

      • Read again; cops were there investigating the neighbor, who had called them and accused him of drugging him (assuming that any of the purported facts in the story are true).

  2. “I’ve had people tell me that this would’ve never happened had I been armed, but I don’t believe adding more weapons to this incident would have helped anyone.”

    Yeah, as the door was kicked in, I’m sure he was thinking, “Well, thank God I don’t have a gun.”

    He called 911 so people *with guns* would respond. I notice he didn’t say “Send unarmed social workers!”

  3. Why do LGBQTXYZ people need a “Sanctuary”. All they have to do is live their lives in private and not push their perversion or fantasy on others. Most people don’t care until the LGBQTXYZ ‘ers insist on special rights, privileges, compensation, recognition, and fantasy participation. Gun owners have been ostracized for long time, maybe the LGBQTXYZ’ers should grow so thicker skin and STFU, because our rights are numerated in the Constitution yet almost completely denied.

    • MB
      “All they have to do is live their lives in private and not push their perversion or fantasy on others.”

      Except they WON’T.

      They are targeting our KIDS and GRANDKIDS in an attempt to twist their brains into following a perverted and potentially DEADLY ‘lifestyle.’

      It would be interesting to research and see if this individual was (is) one of the POSs out pushing this agenda in the community.

      Look, I don’t condone ANYONE doing what her neighbor did, but occasionally, you’re going to get the person, (like the dad did years ago by killing his kids rapist and murderer in the airport,) and decide that enough is enough. (Not that that applies in this case. Maybe the neighbor was just whacko. Have to dig a bit more.)

      And what if the neighbor had used the butt of a 4×4 to smash the door down and brought in a few Molotov Cocktails? They gonna go after 4×4 and gasoline ‘control?’

  4. “being attacked by an assault weapon in my own home” tells me everything I need to know about this person. They are unable to think rationally, believing that an inanimate object attacked them, rather than recognizing that an individual made a conscious decision to do them harm. If the attacker is caught, would this person advocate that the weapon go to jail and the attacker go free?

    • Drugged out crazy guy does criminal stuff and we need to ban “assault weapons” and armor piercing ammo now……… sucks to be them but no.

      • Drugged out crazy guy probably didn’t even realize this guy was whatever special class it thinks it is in. Looking at the headshot I can’t even really tell Lazarus’s skin color much less being trans or whatever. Just another skinny pasty egghead with a terrorist pubic hair beard.

        Crazy guy probably just went off because his neighbor narked on him as crazy guys on the edge just might do.

        • “Crazy guy probably just went off“

          Gee, it’s too bad there’s no way to make sure crazy guys didn’t have ready access to deadly efficient firearms.

          Oh well, it seems these sort of mentally unstable people employing firearms to kill their family, friends and neighbors is just something we have to put up with.

        • miner. You fascists don’t really understand freedom at even a basic level. But keep pushing your nonsense. You’re helping to sell a million + guns a month.

          Fascinating disconnect with reality.

        • There are all kinds of ways to keep firearms out of the hands of dangerous people already on the books, though we don’t yet have a pre-crime division. That aside, if this guy was that much of a nut, what measure, short of locking him up, would have prevented him from setting Letcher’s house on fire while Letcher was asleep?

        • MINOr49er You are right. It is a shame we can’t do much about the mental health problem as you Lefties REFUSE to modify HIPPA. It is truly fascinating how you Lefties are disconnected from reality.

    • Back in the 70s after we got married, we lived in 2 different apartment complexes that had a few “out of the closet” tenants. The first was the cheapest we could find and I made some extra money doing minor work on their vehicles. The second was a luxury apartment building and they were very good neighbors(older queens).
      There were some members of the NRA and they were serious about it. As long as keep it behind closed doors, it doesn’t bother me.
      Sadly, this doesn’t seem to be the situation now, many are very militant and want to indoctrinate our children. Kind of sad, really.

  5. “We can’t call ourselves a sanctuary for queer and trans people while simultaneously defending the rights of guns over human lives.”

    This ‘what ever they imagine they are’ person doesn’t seem to see a difference between ‘criminal activity’ (where their problem mostly lies, more so in their own community where a trans person is over 1,173 times more likely to be a victim of a criminal act of violence by another trans person or a person the trans person chooses to engage in sexual activity or ‘partnership’ with than they are to be violently victimized by others not in the trans community) – and that of constitutional rights of law abiding people. Just more evidence that being ‘trans’ biases perception of reality, ya know, just like the DSM-5 and mental health professional kinda say it does.

    No one is defending “the rights of guns over human lives”, guns don’t have rights, they are non-living inanimate objects. The law abiding have an inalienable inherent individual natural right which is codified by enumeration in the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution, a right to keep and bear arms. That’s what is being defended, not just for gun owners, but the whole Constitution from the unconstitutional and illegal power grab by the NM tyrant – yes, defending the 2A here is defending the whole Constitution which is that very Constitution that applies to the rights you claim are yours too. Imagine a governor deciding that ‘trans’ expression in public under a first amendment right was a danger to the public and decided to ban the first amendment for only trans people under a ‘public health emergency’ pretense – I’m pretty sure you would be kinda wanting that not to happen.

    You idiot, the protests against the NM tyrant wasn’t really about just ‘guns’, it was about the whole Constitution, the Constitution you enjoy by your own inalienable inherent individual natural rights being codified by enumeration – this was, although not obvious to many, about and for you too.

    • ya know, ‘queer/trans’ hypocrites like this abound…they want self-serving special treatment advantages for their selves at the expense of Constitutional rights for others. And while claiming to be ‘innocent’ as a community, their own community members violently victimize them more than anyone else while at the same time the trans community ’embrace’ the violent acts members of their own community by trying to excuse it (e.g. Nashville trans murderer, allies with ANTIFA and their calls for biological women to be raped and murdered, and hundreds of violent acts against others annually.)

      • .40 cal
        I wonder if Antiphag realizes how bad the backlash will be if they start shit this time? (Well, outside of their ‘protected’ areas that is.) I’m getting the sense that if they keep trying their crap in more suburban / rural areas, the backlash will be quick, and severe.

        • “if they keep trying their crap in more suburban / rural areas, the backlash will be quick, and severe“

          Could you give me an example of “their crap” you think is objectionable.

        • MINOR49er. Specifically, your criminal friends rampaging in the suburban/urban areas. Is that specific enough for you? And I sure do find your criminal friends’ conduct to be reprehensible.

      • 40 said, “This ‘what ever they imagine they are’ person doesn’t seem to see a difference between ‘criminal activity’ (where their problem mostly lies”
        and is substantiated by this from the article, “Realizing that being attacked by an assault weapon in my own home wasn’t even ”
        The attacker was an assault weapon not a person.

        Just one example of the foolishness in the article of fiction.

        Pathetic!

      • “they want self-serving special treatment advantages for their selves“

        Specifically, what sort of special treatment do you think they are demanding?

        • Specifically, you Leftist want rights for you and your comrades but not for the rest of us. Is that specific enough for you?

    • “where their problem mostly lies, more so in their own community where a trans person is over 1,173 times more likely to be a victim of a criminal act of violence by another trans person or a person the trans person chooses to engage in sexual activity or ‘partnership’ with than they are to be violently victimized by others not in the trans community”

      Do you have a reference for that? Not saying I don’t believe it, it rings quite true since outside of war violence is more often than not personal.

    • I agree. Yesterday, I added a comment, “I’ll take things that never happened for $500, Alex,” but my comment was sent to moderation purgatory and never appeared!
      I knew the story was fake from the first sentence, which says, “I was playing video games when my neighbor broke the glass by my front door with the butt of an assault rifle.”
      I think the author got high while playing video games and confused the video game with real life. Nobody in America has ever had their front door glass broken by an “assault rifle” carried by a civilian, so either the person breaking in was a cop, or the author was high on hallucinogenics.

  6. Not sure if drank the Kool Aid or the Bud Light, but the screen door somehow got left open on laz’s submarine.

  7. What is deliberately not mentioned is not the importance of guns above human lives, but guns in the hands of free citizens preserves lives from the leftist criminal recidivist population let loose on society by other leftists, and also from out of control government officials.

    Leftists in this sense are people who do not believe in others rights of liberty and security of their persons and property. Doesn’t matter if its a politician or a professional thief or gang banger.

    The history of governments of an authoritarian nature shows that those who are not armed and not part of the current “IN” crowd, die violently in overwhelmingly large numbers.

  8. I have no doubt at all it went down exactly that way. Even if this story is a work of fiction, I’m sure it happens just like this anyway.

    I really couldn’t care less what this person’s sexual preferences are one way or the other. That has nothing to do with anything and not relevant to the situation at hand. Even IF it happened BECAUSE of this person is a queer trans. This is just being used to spark an emotional response.

    The spineless ignorance on full display here is obvious. They have no clue what they are talking about much less any understanding of what they are afraid of or even how to deal with the situation. There are plenty of folks like this that are str8 too. NO ASSAULT WEAPONS WERE USED. The fact that things like this happen IS THE REASON why people have guns.

    Grow up, get a back bone, buy a gun and learn how to use it, and move on!

  9. This entire story reads of one individuals struggle with mental health and a healthy imagination. Jumps at own shadow, saw dust kick up as he was running and just the general way things are worded shows someone who has deep set issues who desperately needs help for the real issues they face, not the boogie man they imagine the sane to be.

    • Biden will incorporate this story into his next speech saying it happened to him after he returned home from a Civil Right march.

  10. How come no link to any articles in the legit media about this “attack”? Seems like a armed home invasion would rate a story in the local media, if any such story exist please provide a link. I’d love to read a version that isn’t told from the alternate reality where this person lives.

  11. “I’ve had people tell me that this would’ve never happened had I been armed, but I don’t believe adding more weapons to this incident would have helped anyone. Given how often I jump at my own shadow, I don’t think having a deadly weapon is in anyone’s best interest.” *

    *Oblivious impotent shtlib projection at its finest.

    • Yep
      This is the very kind of mentally unstable individual that we need to keep an eye on for going off their meds and snapping then taking a firearm to little children.

  12. So just to be clear none of the events that transpired had anything at all to do with anything or anyone being queered or transistored.

    Crazy paranoid drug addict neighbor acted like a crazy paranoid drug addict and it’s the guns fault.

  13. If you go to the actual article, it says “they” turned “their” pain into advocacy. Yet, it’s one person that is being referred to.
    That’s all you need to know right there.

  14. I understand that Michelle Obama will become the spokesperson for the transgender, gun prohibition movement.

    • Hey there buddy it’s “Big Mike” to you and if don’t comply he’ll take you naked paddleboarding but just don’t ask if that’s a paddle in his massive paws.

  15. I have difficulty believing this person’s story. Even on a busy news day this incident should have received a mention & been caught by the major news media as ir met all if their criteria. An “assault weapon ” was used against one of the oppressed class. A shooting in a city that isn’t a huge metropolitan area will generally get at least a mention in the news. I survived an accidental shooting and I was mentioned in a local newspaper. Yes this happened pre-internet.

  16. My guess is he imagined the attack, just like he imagined the calls for violence against the governor and the rise in hate crimes against queer and trans people. Remember, these people think that ‘misgendering’ people and forbidding doctors from cutting young girls’ breasts off are violent hate crimes.

    • “My guess is he imagined the attack,…”

      Yeah, especially after reading on its website its CV, where we find :

      “Develop and implement a communications strategy for our organization and partners, craft compelling stories about the apps and projects we create.”

      Its *job* (craft compelling stories) is to make up stories. IE, *lie*. 😉

    • “I have a tendency to think this “story” is pure unadulterated FICTION.”

      Just because it admits on its CV that it :

      “…craft compelling stories about the apps and projects we create.”? 🙂

    • It’s “Fiction” alright, kaweir/tr@n$ “Erotic fiction” he probably posted it on reddit first.

    • It’s “Fiction” alright, “Sexually deviant erotic fiction” he probably posted it on reddit first, it’s what he desperately wants to happen to him, the thought of it likely sends him “over the edge”.

  17. LOL , That sounds like it came off a Terminator movie, did the cops ask the shooter if the dogs name was ” Wolfie” – – – You Parents are Dead.
    .
    There I was, chewing on a dead coyote when around the bend came a pair of headlights. They was moving fast, I think they had a High Capacity fuel tank and a fully semiautomatic transmission. Anyway I skedaddle’d off the road and towards a brush pile but whoever was after me musta had an assualt veehickle because they cleared the ditch without a bobble and if it wouldn’t have been for that oak tree and that buzzard I made friends with I’d have been run over.
    We got that SOB by golly, just about the time he thought he was going to JWM a possum the buzzard hit the front window with a load of biden,obscuring the drivers vision, I ducked behind the oak tree and *KaBlam* Toyota’s bumpers are a little tougher then Fords but the tree is just fine and we are having the driver for dinner.

  18. Disregarding everything else about this posting, whether true, fantasy, or somewhere in-between: No one should be primarily concerned about any form of violence being directed at some subset of human choice or activity. We should only be concerned with wanton violence against all human beings and their property. Period.

    The attempts to make various sub categories either hate crimes, or in any manner an exclusive class, goes completely against the American system and our Constitution and other founding documents.

  19. Hmmm… maybe I should, but for some reason I couldn’t GAF about this crap.. sick and tired of people demanding special treatment and running roughshod over MY rights.

  20. So, let me get this straight. Someone with a drug and mental health problems commits a violent act and the rest of the citizens of the country should be forced to hand over their firearms. Forever giving up their rights of self defense and self determination. Sure, all because someone else with delusions and fetishes along with obvious mental issues says we should.
    What could possibly be wrong with that?

  21. Being a queer gun owner surrounded by so-called “cis white supremacist maga trumpers”, I say pics or it didn’t happen. I believe every word that person said is fiction.

  22. I clicked on the link and read the full article. The self centered narcissism of the alphabet people drives me insane. It’s pretty obvious that the man was simply wacked out of his mind on meth and could have cared less what pronouns this person preferred.

  23. So I read his story:

    “In August, the attorney for my attacker hit me with a gag order over comments I’ve made about my experience as a queer and trans survivor of gun violence on social media and on the gun safety organization Everytown’s survivor support page. They are especially peeved that I’m sharing my belief that this was a hate-motivated event. Out of respect for his family and his future, I’ve never said his name publicly, shared the videos of the incident, or any identifying facts. Hitting the victim of a violent crime with a gag motion is a rare move, and I’m grateful that it was thrown out, allowing me to share my story. I believe my story is my strength, and I don’t believe healing can happen in silence.”

    1.) a defense attorney can’t “hit” you with a gag order, he can ask for one but can’t issue one. A judge can. And…it was thrown out?

    2.) You have been so traumatized as a queer and trans survivor of gun violence, which you say 999 gazillion times, your life has been SO upended, you say this is such a “soul-crushing and dehumanizing process” from this monster that you are…. PROTECTING the attacker, his family and future by refusing to let anyone know who this reprobate is?

    WTF?

    The case is in court, yes? This means it’s public record. So let’s here more about this, please. Guy shoots up a neighborhood, apparently multiple witnesses acknowledge this and it’s not reported on the news anywhere.

    Uh huh….

    • But, self-admitted guy who’s too jumpy to consider owning a gun could positively ID it as an AK-47 while he ran the other way. Sounds legit….

  24. I bet all his neighbors refer to him by “Lecherous Lazarus” or “that phairy” and hurriedly usher their children inside whenever he emerges from his degeneracy hole.

  25. “I’ve had people tell me that this would’ve never happened had I been armed, but I don’t believe adding more weapons to this incident would have helped anyone.”

    Well, it might not have helped you, but it would have helped a normal, rational, sane adult in possession of his faculties.

  26. So I read the original article… *sigh*

    I’ll just say it; This sounds like fanfic. Like, exactly like fanfic. It’s too fucking perfect in every regard. I mean, the guy’s a black trans activist and a PhD student studying Black trans history?

    GTFO.

    Yeah, Albuquerque’s got some rough areas but it’s not a combination of Mogadishu and some sort of anti-trans Auschwitz and I’d be willing to bet quite a bit that this story is greatly embellished if it even happened at all.

    Sure, maybe a drugged up nutter went shootymcfuckface with an AK but I can pretty well guar-an-fuckin-tee that it had nothing to do with any sort of targeting of this guy for anything other than being present. I also find it very odd that this sort of behavior would be somewhat believable in certain parts of ‘Burque but he describes his area as being exactly NOT those areas. Strange, that.

    Stranger still, a quick search would indicate the local news doesn’t seem to know anything about this horrific crime. The only “assault rifle” incident they seem to know of in 2023 was at the Flix Brewhouse, and that was with an AR. But they do have stories about how trans people were harassed after the Nashville shooting, so it’s not like the dangers to the trans community aren’t on their radar. I mean, according to KRQE, people actually yelling things from cars at trans people after Nashville!

    I kinda feel like they might report on a trans person being attacked with an AK. Like, report on it A LOT.

    Light on details, all the links to go other “pride” or anti-gun pages, he can’t even name his attacker so we can search for a court record, half a dozen searches aggregating local news find nothing… I’m thinking this is pretty high on the list of things that never happened.

  27. Dont these lefty trans people realize they’ll probably be one of the first groups rounded up and shot, if everyone’s guns were to be seized??? What/who do they think protects their ability to run around acting like a jacka$$… that would be the 2a

  28. All the queers I associate with on a regular basis are armed.

    The 2A works the same for them as anyone else, I wish more could understand that.

    • Too many transphobes who care more about expressing their prejudices than in the long game to protect gun rights. They seem blind to the fact that they’re promoting exactly the picture of intolerant gun owners that the gun grabbers love to portray as typical.

      • Meanwhile on the left, too many who believe the junk science studies showing that having a gun is more danger than benefit to the owner. When one political side tends to reject a demographic and the other accepts them, guess which side’s propaganda is going to seem more credible to that demographic?

  29. Absolute and total bullshit Even the most incompentent Police Dpt would have the shooter in chains in minutes and to try to tell as that somebody with a bloody Semi-Auto can miss you at point blank range is ridicuLous and I, coming from the UK, am in favour of banning firearms in the hands of Civilians without just cause, and self defence is NOT JUST CAUSE in my neck of the woods, in the hands of Civilians.
    Making up such silly stories just make’s idiots like you objects of ridicule and does your cause no favours.

  30. Apparently this person thinks that is the home intruder had a shotgun instead of an “assault rifle”, this would have been just peachy. Seriously how to you come to the conclusion that we need to ban assault rifles from this? Would you prefer he busted in with a spear or a Katana?

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