Virginia’s 2nd Amendment rally was a huge disappointment for Big Nanny Mike Bloomberg, Gov. Ralph Northam and gun-grabbing busybodies across the nation. The event failed to produce the Reichstag Fire the left was secretly hoping would occur.
Over 22,000 armed 2nd Amendment supporters gathered in the state capital with loaded firearms, and there wasn’t even a single accidental discharge.
Talk about your misfire.
And the “armed militia groups planning to storm the Capitol” that forced Northam to declare a state of emergency? The feds arrested six losers before they could stock up on jerky, and one of those was a Canadian.
Had there been violence, it would have provided the perfect pretext for the left to accelerate the 2nd Amendment rollback in Virginia. Simply owning a gun would be all the “red flag” authorities would need.
Although entirely peaceful, the event was a failure. The very next day leftist legislators passed three 2nd Amendment violations the rally crowd specifically opposed.
What the rally did accomplish was revealing how the left, its stenographers in the Opposition Media, its elected officials and its stooges in law enforcement view normal Americans who value a Constitutional right leftists don’t like.
That view alternates between utter contempt and hyperventilating fear.
The left initially tried to discourage turnout by characterizing the gathering as a Klan rally without the carbon footprint. Those who were willing to risk being photographed near the only confirmed racist in town — Gov. Northam famous for his blackface/Klan robes photo and nickname “Coonman” in his college yearbook — received additional discouragement when warned they might be caught up in violence from armed militia groups that were going to “storm the capitol.”
Law enforcement stooges angling for an appointment piled on, too. Attendees who wanted to convene on the capitol grounds were going to be penned up like illegals behind an Obama fence. Participants were told to come early because there would only be one entrance to the concentration pen, and there would be a single bathroom inside for thousands. (The accepted rule of thumb for abortion “rights” rallies and illegals’ amnesty gatherings is 1 bathroom per 100.)
Fortunately, 2nd Amendment supporters aren’t as stupid as Gov. Coonman. Rather than be herded into Northam’s Gitmo for Guns, thousands more armed supporters stood outside the fences where current law allows the open carry of weapons. (Look for this to change in the near future.)
Storming militias, white supremacist groups, assorted bigots, law breakers, armed bullies and trigger-happy vigilantes all failed to put in an appearance. That didn’t stop the left from using its favorite adjectives anyway.
Northern VA Rep. Don Beyer tweeted, “[Richmond] drew large numbers of white nationalists, militias and racist conspiracy theorists. … Neo–Nazis tried to use the rally to launch violent attacks.” All of which are lies.
WoePost columnist Petula Dvorak, the chronicler of conventional wisdom, combined lies and contempt. “Y’all, it smelled like fear out here in Virginia. … One group pushed through crowds in a conga line of camo and Carhartt. … ‘Racist, white supremacists coming through,’ one line leader bellowed, laughing, like everyone should know he really isn’t racist.”
The writer who really captured the left’s Zeitgeist was a creature named Will Bunch who writes for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He’s also the most dangerous because he would deny your constitutional rights because he’s afraid.
Here’s his description of a gathering of law-abiding Americans exercising a right guaranteed by the Constitution: “America — although we may be too frightened to even admit it — just witnessed arguably the most successful use of terrorism on U.S. soil in nearly a generation, even if this time was non-lethal. … American citizens were deprived of [1st Amendment] rights on Monday — on Martin Luther King Day, of all days — by an intimidating bullying, armed mob. Do not dare call this ‘peaceful.’”
Bunch was evidently too lazy to discover the Virginia Civil Defense League, which organized the rally, has been holding their event on that day for over a decade. Why? Because 2nd Amendment supporters have jobs and need a day off to travel to Richmond to contact their legislators.
And Bunch is too fearful of an inanimate object and too drunk on his faux outrage to grasp that my exercise of a constitutional right does not threaten him.
His fear is our problem.
There’s no compromise with anti-gun extremists. They have an agenda and a long–term plan. Each “compromise” is another step toward neutering the 2nd Amendment.
The language Northam, Beyer, Dvorak, Bloomberg and Bunch use is not how one refers to someone whose views they respect. Their language is not how one refers to someone whose constitutional rights they respect.
Their language is how the authorities refer to people they intend to disarm and force into an outdoor enclosure with one bathroom per 6,000.
Copyright 2020 Michael Shannon, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Michael Shannon is a commentator and public relations consultant, and is the author of “A Conservative Christian’s Guidebook for Living in Secular Times.” He can be reached at mandate.mmpr@gmail.com.
