A Gadsden flag-inspired message appeared all over West Hollywood this week urging the LGBT community to embrace its Second Amendment rights.
Posters and stickers featuring a snake against a rainbow background were plastered around the city Thursday. The Twitter hashtag #ShootBack ran across the bottom of the signage, which upset West Hollywood Mayor Lauren Meister.
“We are disturbed by them,” the Democrat lawmaker said, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday. “We don’t believe in an eye for an eye, and we advocate against gun violence. Whoever is doing this, this is not the voice of the city.”
The images were made just days after 29-year-old security guard Omar Mateen attacked the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 and wounding 53 others Sunday morning.
Oscar Delgado, West Hollywood’s director of public works, told the newspaper that #ShootBack signs would be taken down as soon as possible.
“We are looking for them,” Mr. Delgado said Thursday. “Ones that are on public property are going to be removed.”
The rattlesnake has been a symbol of American vigilance and self-defense since the 1700s. Benjamin Franklin wrote of the creature in 1775:
“As if anxious to prevent all pretensions of quarreling with her, the weapons with which nature has furnished her she conceals in the roof of her mouth, so that, to those who are unacquainted with her, she appears to be a most defenseless animal, and even when those weapons are shown and extended for their defense, they appear weak and contemptible; but their wounds, however small, are decisive and fatal. Conscious of this, she never wounds till she has generously given notice, even to her enemy, and cautioned him against the danger of treading on her.”
The Gadsden flag was designed by statesman Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina and used during the Revolutionary War.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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