Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/05/21/watch-193-pride-flags-stop-a-b.html
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Have you seen the weapons these days, its honestly not gonna be a single bullet coming for you, unless it takes one shot.
Note to potential YouTube stars: don’t try this at home with your loved one.
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The symbolism here is a bit iffy IMHO. Shooting 193 representations of homosexuals at once may not be the message I’d want to send. I get what the artist was trying for, but I’m not sure they didn’t accidentally send the opposite message.
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I see it as saying someone’s got to get out in front if anybody’s going to survive, but perhaps that’s my own attitude talking and not theirs.
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Somehow I don’t think the NRA will go in for this - “The only protection from a bad flag is a good gay with a gun” probably doesn’t go down well with their core constituency.
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The only protection against a gun is 193 gay human shields? That’s the kind of message that might go over quite well with some parts of their membership.
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I hope Fondation Émergence didn’t pay too much to the ad agency that came up with that one. Then again, it’s the customer who makes the final decision.
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That’s pretty cool on multiple levels.
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193? For the longest time I assumed the number was 192. Someone’s gone and joined the UN without telling me, Dammit!
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Cool concept, but is it bad that I kind of want to see the ballistics tables (or at least the caliber used) for this? 
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The US recognizes 195, last last count. The UN recognizes 193. And there are other fluxes…
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My takeaway is “stand with LGBT, but stand towards the back”.
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South Sudan.
Also, I can tell you from personal experience that the tour guides at the UN do not expect anyone to be able to give the number of UN member states.
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I’m a little conflicted here too.
Would anyone be offended if I did a similar thing with the flags of all the countries?
Do I put the countries in my own favoured order, or is it random? Would that offend more or less people?
Maybe in order of gay or trans murders? That’d be fine, right?
No. This pisses me off. There has to be a far better way to portray unity against violence than literally shooting at the only universally recognisable LGBT symbol. Fuck that.
But I will give them credit for trying. Well intentioned, but a fucking terrible way to show it.
Sorry people, I’m all out of jokes this time, can you tell?
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sheepishly raises hand
I confess, I also wanted to know what weapon was used, and what load, as well as at which flag the bullet was brought to a stop.
To be clear, I’m in agreement with @Medievalist that the part of the symbolism that resonated with me was that taking a stand may involve assuming some risk of personal harm.
But I also respect the opinions of those who do not at all like the notion of shooting the pride flag, for any purpose.
Edit for grammar
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Where’s your Kickstarter?
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I think the point is, or at least my take away, is real world violence is a reality many LGBT people face. Some of it state sponsored. Whether one feels it offensive or not doesn’t stop the fact it is real. But the positive message is that through unity violence can be stopped. Using such a recognized symbol is one of the things that makes it powerful, IMHO. YMMV.
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Historically a flag, any flag, has some deep down ancient associations with warfare. We want them to be benign symbols of representation today, but when you get right down to it, flying a flag is meant to distinguish friend from foe.
Shooting at a flag, then, no matter how much it may make people squirm, is kind of the point. The only thing unclear in this example, is if the advertiser expects the attacker to run out of bullets before the defenders run out of flags.
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I totally get what symbolism here was supposed to represent, but on a flip side I can also totaly see a far right group cheering to a video of a single bullet piercing 192 “gay” flags… As in “look how much damage can one of us cause before being stopped”.
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