RICHMOND, Virginia – Supporters of the Second Amendment have received warnings about being set up at the annual rally at the Commonwealth of Virginia capitol, which has become ground-zero for the constitutionally protected right of Americans to keep and bear arms.
For nearly two decades, Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) has organized an annual trek to the General Assembly on Martin Luther King Day to peacefully assemble and lobby their legislators on the 2nd Amendment.
VCDL has been looking to step up attendance for their 2020 Lobby Day – setting a target of 50,000 attendees – in light of the drastic gun-control measures proposed by Governor Ralph Northam and the General Assembly which is newly under Democrat control.
Tom DeWeese, as Founder and President of the American Policy Center, is a leading advocate of individual liberty, free enterprise, private property rights, personal privacy, back-to-basics education and American sovereignty and independence.
DeWeese took to Facebook Friday, saying he was in Richmond and had just received information from a very reliable source concerning Monday’s rally.
According to DeWeese, Antifa rented seven buses to bring in their “thugs,” wearing MAGA hats and NRA garb, pretending to be pro-gun people. Others, posing as Democrats holding anti-gun signs, will be attacked by the “Antifa thugs” making it look like the pro-gun people started the violence.
DeWeese warns those attending the rally, “Be very careful.”
Virginia Senator Amanda Chase (R-District 11), whom the Western Journal reports to be a “conservative,” issued a warning of her own.
Senator Chase said that, knowing about the Virginia Governor’s State of Emergency, “I want you to be aware of how we are being set up.”
She then asked, rhetorically, “Does the Patriot Act ring a bell? Does the National defense Authorization Act ring a bell?”
Senator Chase argues that those laws could be used to label pro-2nd Amendment activists attending the rally wearing militia insignias or even military fatigues as “domestic terrorists,” according to Western Journal.
“The Governor, using the media has already set the stage for this to happen,” writes Senator Chase. “He has already laid the groundwork to make the entire movement look like insurrection.”
Since the election of 2nd Amendment-hating Democrat presidential hopeful Mike Bloomberg’s “bought and paid for” Virginia Democrat-majority legislature – as the NRA (National Rifle Association) called it – it has been understood that there would be an all-out assault on law-abiding firearms owners.
VCDL reports that three gun-control bills have already passed the Commonwealth’s Senate and are headed to the House of Delegates. A fourth “Red Flag Bill” was passed-by two days in a row on the Senate floor, says VCDL.
Last week, via executive order Virginia Governor Ralph Northam put a temporary ban on law-abiding citizens from carrying their firearms on the public property surrounding the Richmond’s Capitol Square for VCDL’s Lobby Day and Rally.
It’s a move that VCDL said may be illegal, but lost a Circuit Court challenge in the Virginia Supreme Court for not including enough information to merit action, according to The Washington Post.
About a year ago, Governor Northam – a pediatrician – came into the national spotlight with his shocking statements, “the infant would be kept comfortable” and “then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and mother,” relative to infants born alive during a third-trimester abortion.
Shortly after, it was revealed that Northam was one of the two people in a photo on his medical school yearbook page wearing either “black face” or a Ku Klux Klan robe and hood.
VCDLs Lobby Day and Rally should be able to capitalize on the uprising in support of the 2nd Amendment across the Virginia Commonwealth, from packed-house meetings to 2nd Amendment Sanctuary resolutions passed by numerous local jurisdictions.
According to Virginia Second Amendment, so far 106 counties/cities and an additional 32 towns have declared themselves 2nd Amendment sanctuaries, covering most of Virginia.
For more than a month, VCDL has made it clear that Monday, January 20 is Lobby Day for the organization, not a Protest Day. VCDL President Philip Van Cleave said its total focus for the day is on protecting the right to keep and bear arms, and is not about flags, statues, history or any topic other than guns.
The rally’s location – Richmond Capitol Square – is fenced in, and access to the grounds by the tens of thousands of 2nd Amendment supporters attending the rally will be restricted to a single entrance where they will be screened through magnetometers.
https://twitter.com/VACapitol2020/status/1217854254406414337?s=03
Fox News reports that the FBI arrested three men linked to a violent white-supremacist group and believed to be heading to Monday’s pro-gun rally.
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Laura Baigert is a senior reporter at The Tennessee Star.
