Since the Orlando terror attack the LGBT gun rights group Pink Pistols has seen their membership grow from 1,500 to more than 7,000.

The Orlando attack occurred in a gay nightclub and Pink Pistols spokesperson Gwendolyn Patton said, “I’ve been thinking of this as the gay community’s 9/11.”

According to NPR, Pink Pistols has “36 chapters around the country.” Meetings usually include getting together for lunch then going to a shooting range. The Pink Pistols urge members “to get concealed pistol permits and learn how to shoot.”

To that end, the Pink Pistols use their website to “highlight over 500 firearms instructors around the country who are LGBT friendly.”

The day after the Orlando terror attack, Patton wrote, “This is exactly the kind of heinous act that justifies our existence.”

Patton said:

What we’ve been trying to do is make some kind of good out of [the attack]; to try to help people protect themselves. To not just feel safe, but to actually be safe.

NPR points to the fact that “gun control advocates” have seized on the Orlando attack to push “stricter laws,” while “gun rights champions want greater freedom to concealed carry in so-called gun free zones.” They went on to report that Pulse Orlando was a gun-free zone by Florida law–“Florida does not allow firearms in a bar that makes half its profits off alcohol sales.”

Pink Pistols’ Patton says that needs to change; that people who choose not to drink should be able to carry a firearm as a “designated defender.” President Obama does not agree. He said the suggestion that “more people in a night club are similarly armed to the killer defies common sense.”

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.