On Thursday, federal law enforcement officials arrested several white supremacists who, we are told, wanted to shoot up the “Lobby Day” rally in Virginia on Monday where 100,000 Second Amendment supporters will demonstrate.
How fortuitous for the government. The arrests are giving Virginia Governor Ralph Northam and other opponents of gun rights, a perfect excuse to portray all gun owners as mouth breathing, racist hicks who can’t be trusted to carry guns anywhere.
Northam successfully fought off a challenge to his firearms ban in the state capitol in advance of Monday’s rally. Several gun rights groups had sued the governor, looking to overturn the ban.
#BREAKING: Here is Judge Joi Taylor’s ruling denying a request for an injunction against Gov. Northam’s firearm ban that goes into effect tomorrow night.
Ban was put in place as part of a state of emergency declaration for Monday’s gun lobby day at the State Capitol. @CBS6 pic.twitter.com/yDSnkxmbHR
— Cam Thompson (@CamThompsonCBS6) January 16, 2020
Meanwhile, Northam is ginning up fear that the crazies are coming to town.
We have received credible intelligence from our law enforcement agencies of threats of violence surrounding the demonstration planned for Monday, January 20. This includes extremist rhetoric similar to what has been seen before major incidents, such as Charlottesville in 2017.
— Ralph Northam (@GovernorVA) January 15, 2020
Trump waded into the fight.
Your 2nd Amendment is under very serious attack in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia. That’s what happens when you vote for Democrats, they will take your guns away. Republicans will win Virginia in 2020. Thank you Dems!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2020
The Virginia Senate passed three more gun control bills on Friday with more to come. It should rile up the crowd at the rally even more.
Northam and other gun rights opponents think that having 100,000 people rallying for gun rights — with many of them armed — will lead to violence. Northam declared a “state of emergency” — as if the very presence of several thousand armed citizens is a threat.
What would Northam have done 250 years ago at a militia muster?
Northam and many other Democrats are terrified of guns. Even an unloaded weapon triggered a couple of local Democrats in Portsmouth, VA.
A city official in Virginia showed support for the Second Amendment earlier this week by bringing an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle to a city council meeting.
The move by Portsmouth Councilman Nathan Clark came as the council was to consider making the city a “Second Amendment Constitutional City” – placing it in symbolic opposition to gun-control efforts underway in the newly Democrat-controlled state Assembly.
Because of this “surprise,” a couple of Democrats thought Clark should resign or at least apologize.
“It was a disgrace, disheartening and an embarrassment,” Vice Mayor Lisa Lucas-Burke wrote to the council Thursday, according to the newspaper. “Most of us were blindsided by the display.” Lucas-Burke was among three council members who voted against the “Constitutional City” designation. The others were Councilman Shannon Glover and Mayor John Rowe. Glover had complained of being blindsided by Clark’s gesture, the report said.
Another critic was Fred Guttenberg, father of one of the victims of the Parkland, Fla., high school shooting in February 2018, who accused Clark of “open intimidation” and called on him to resign.
How can anyone be “intimidated” by an unloaded weapon? Sheesh.
In the end, this is the Republicans’ own fault. In November, 2018, more Democrats in Virginia showed up to vote than Republicans. This resulted in a sweep for the Democrats, taking control of both houses of the legislature and the governorship.
And now Virginians have a governor who declares a “state of emergency” when citizens show up at a peaceful rally legally armed and lawmakers look to harass, annoy, and violate the rights of its citizens. And to add insult to injury, those same politicians seek to lump law-abiding, responsible gun owners in with white supremacists.
Trump may be right. Virginia Democrats may have signed their own electoral death warrant.
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