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
