Virginia gun rally live updates: Thousands gather near Capitol under heavy security – The Washington Post, The Washington Post

Erich Pratt, senior vice president of Gun Owners of America

Sheriff Scott Jenkins of Culpeper County, who said he was willing to deputize thousands to preserve citizens’ gun rights

S heriff Danny Diggs of York County, who pledged to stand strong against infringements of Americans’ right to keep and bear arms

Anthony Myers, a gun rights activist from Suffolk

Sen. Amanda Chase (R), a Trump supporter who openly wore a. 48 special on her hip on the Senate floor

Del Nick Freitas (R)

Del John McGuire (R)

By

Hannah Natanson

January

, at 9: (AM EST

Northam’s gun-control promises, Democratic takeover of General Assembly spurred rallygoers to take action

Chris Anders can pinpoint exactly what inspired him to protest in Richmond on Monday: the man he calls “Radical Ralph.”

As Anders gathered signatures Monday morning for a petition demanding the recall of Go v. Ralph Northam (D), the – year-old resident of Loudoun County said he and like-minded friends thought they had to take action to oppose the governor’s vows to enact sweeping gun-control measures this year.

Northam has said he will limit handgun purchases to one per month, forbid military-style weapons and silencers and pass a “red flag” law that would permit authorities to temporarily take away weapons from anyone deemed a threat. His promises carry significant weight after Democrats won majorities in both the House of Delegates and the state Senate for the first time in a generation.

In response, more than 340 counties, cities and towns across Virginia have passed some type of resolution in support of gun rights. To many gun rights advocates, the rally in Richmond on Monday has become a key, high-profile opportunity to publicly voice defiance.

Anders said that his online petition, hosted by a group calling itself Virginia Conservatives, has garnered about , 0 signatures. He expects to draw many more over the course of the morning.

“People are tired of someone trying to roll over them,” Anders said of Northam.

Gregory S. Schneider and Hannah Natanson

January 30, (at 8:) AM EST

Inside legislative offices, lobbying efforts begin

As some rallygoers massed in the streets , hoisting signs about gun rights and reciting the Second Amendment in unison, others entered the legislative office to launch lobbying efforts. Around 8: am, the Styslinger family of Virginia Beach stepped inside an elevator in search of their state senator, Jen Kiggans (R).

Mother Barb and father Bill are both trauma nurses, and both had ministered to victims of last year mass shooting at a Virginia Beach municipal building. That experience revealed the “damage” that results when people are unable to defend themselves, said Bill Styslinger, 62 – so they brought them – year-old son Mason to the rally Monday to teach him that lesson, too.

“Do you want to have your constitutional rights when you get older? ”Bill asked his son, who was feeling a bit nervous.

“ Yes, I do, ”Mason said. He said his mother’s and father’s guns make him feel “safer.”

Elsewhere in the building, state Sen. Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax) hustled to a meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee. As he threaded his way through a crowd of citizens wearing orange “Guns Save Lives” stickers, he said the morning feels typical in some ways: Gun advocates always crowd the office on the annual Lobby Day.

What’s different, he said, is the lack of counterprotesters.

Over the weekend, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence canceled its annual vigil and lobbying day because of “Ongoing, credible threats to public safety,” according to state director Lori Haas. Gov. Ralph Northam (D) instructed all nonessential staff to stay home, many lawmakers advised aides to do likewise, and young pages who run errands in the House and Senate were given the day off for safety.

“Usually people come for lots of issues, but this year they stayed away,” Surovell said. He has also noticed “a lot more cops” this time.

Susan Clarke Schaar, a longtime clerk of the state Senate, passed gathering crowds of at least 1, 08 0 protesters as she walked toward the Capitol and the start of her day. The last time she saw so many people, so early and in such bitter cold, she said, came about years ago on Jan. 19, 2017.

“The inauguration of Doug Wilder as governor,” she said, referring to the first African American elected governor in state history.

By

S. Schneider and Hannah Natanson

January , (at 7: (AM EST)

Hundreds line up to enter Capitol Square

Hundreds were lined up outside Capitol Square before the gates were set to open at 7 a.m. Able Cunningham, , made the 20 – hour drive from north-central Arkansas. “I’m not a gun nut,” said Cunningham, who manufactures equipment for Bad Boy Mowers. “But it’s in the Constitution.”

The prospect of stricter gun laws coming to Virginia under the General Assembly’s new Democratic majority seemed especially galling to him because of the state’s history, he said, of standing up to oppression in the Revolutionary and Civil wars.

“I’m not taking sides with the Confederates or anything. I’m not that twisted, ”Cunningham added.

Many demonstrators preferred to skip the lines and stay on the street, where they could remain armed.

Sam Jenkins left home in Lake Gaston, Va., At 4: 41 am and was standing outside the Bank Street entrance to the Capitol, warning people that they’d be arrested if they tried to go in with guns.

“It says’ public entrance, ‘But that state trooper over there isn’t telling people if they go through that door with any kind of weapon, they can be arrested for domestic terrorism, ”Jenkins said. He was complaining loudly to others that their rights were being violated. Several hundred gun rights advocates mulled around him, smoking and carrying signs.

Jenkins had his weapon with him, as always, he said, and added that he would rather hang onto it than go into the square.

“It’s all about the Second Amendment,” he said.

The crowd was especially thick on the columned portico of St Paul’s Episcopal Church, just across Ninth Street from the entrance.

Some unfurled an enormous flag emblazoned with the image of a semiautomatic weapon.

“Come and take it,” it read.

)

Laura Vozzella, Gregory S. Schneider and Patricia Sullivan

January

, at 7: 45 AM EST

‘Almighty father, we need your help for our country’

About 199 people from militia groups gathered Sunday night for a rally-eve dinner at the Ruritan Club of Glendale, a rural area southeast of downtown Richmond, not far from Richmond International Airport. When organizers asked who was from out of state, more than half the attendees put their hands in the air.

Tammy Lee, a militia activist who led a convoy from Oklahoma and helped organize the dinner, was there. So were members of the South Carolina Light Foot Militia and the Louisiana Oath Keepers.

“This is the Woodstock of the 2nd Amendment,” said Jeff Hulbert of the Maryland-based Patriot Picket. “The sheer numbers of people turning out and the far-flung places people are coming from – as far away as California. … What political activity in Virginia has created is a national meet-up day for people who consider themselves the people’s militia. Most of the time, we’re in touch on the Internet. ”

Virginia has some of the most permissive gun laws in the country. Even if the bills being pushed by Gov. Ralph Northam (D) and the new Democratic majority in the General Assembly are adopted, the state’s laws would not be the most restrictive, acknowledged Hulbert, a contributor to the Truth About Guns blog.

What’s stirred people up, Hulbert said, is how the state’s gun politics were upended in the space of just one election.

“The biggest issue is the shock of the change that’s washing across Virginia, ”he said. “It has alarmed people in a way unlike Maryland or other places, where the politicians chip away, several laws at a time, several years at a time.”

James Walker, , a municipal water operator, was motivated to make the 14 – hour drive from Schaumburg, Ill.

“It’s tyrannical governing and it has to stop,” he said. “It’s not just a Virginia thing. It’s an American thing. ”

Mike Dunlap, 74, a construction consultant from Suffolk, Va., about minutes away, said he was “blown away by the people from out of state.”

Dunlap, a hunter who owns weapons with extended magazines that could be banned under proposed legislation, has never been big on political demonstrations. But he said the Second Amendment sanctuary movement has drawn him to at least a dozen town hall meetings since November.

“It’s a heck of a grab,” he said of the Democrats ‘proposed gun control bills. “I bought all my guns legally. Now you’re telling me I’m going to be a felon? ”

John Cody, head of the South Carolina Light Foot Militia, carried a neat white binder labeled“ The Militias March on Richmond Command Operations Briefing. ”

Cody addressed the gathering with calm formality.

After leading the Pledge of Allegiance to the US flag, he flipped to a section of the briefing book and read an invocation. This was the fundamental underpinning of why they had all come here.

“Almighty father, we need your help for our country, the United States of America,” he began.

Cody prayed for guidance “to return America to the principles and values ​​of our Founding Fathers.” He outlined some: sovereign states and a weak central government. A Constitution delivered “by divine providence.”

He described a people so distracted by material gain that they had lost sight of their deepest rights and obligations. He did mention the Second Amendment or the right to bear arms, but he did have to for this crowd.

“We stand ready and willing to return our nation back to you, ”he prayed. “Give us wisdom and fearlessness to stand against those who want to destroy your land.” And he asked that those who don’t know “about the chains that our government is wrapping around us” would be enlightened and spurred to action.

After the prayer, Cody asked that all Virginians go first to eat at the buffet of corned beef, cabbage and potatoes. But only a couple of people rose. This group was overwhelmingly from outside the state. License plates in the parking lot were from Ohio, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland and more.

Cody said he had 638 Members coming from Light Foot militia groups in several states. All of them, he said, were coming with peaceful intent. “Why would you show up and use this as an excuse to be violent, when there’s no need?” He said in an interview. “Some people haven’t figured that out.”

(By Gregory S. Schneider and Laura Vozzella

January , (at 7: AM EST

In Virginia Beach, the state’s sudden gun control debate is especially fraught

VIRGINIA BEACH – The gun owners crowded into the Freedom Shooting Center meeting room Friday night until it was jammed with 340 men and women wearing hunting camo, “tyranny” T-shirts and Tr ump gear.

They traded warnings about a raft of new gun-control bills being considered by the Virginia General Assembly and made plans to join thousands of gun rights activists for a massive rally in Virginia’s capital Monday.

“It’s worse now,” Robert Mentzer, 84, told a young man in a backward baseball cap who was complaining about one of the gun-control measures introduced days earlier in Richmond. “It has more punch to it. It was an assault weapon ban. Now it’s assault weapons plus others. ”

Both men wore bright orange stickers saying“ Guns Save Lives. ”But the newly elected Democrats who control the state legislature for the first time in a quarter-century did not seem to agree.

In the wake of the November election, gun rights advocates began flooding city and county hearings across the state to demand that they declare themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries.”

Nowhere has the state’s sudden and intense gun-control debate been more fraught than in Virginia Beach. Less than eight months after engineer

DeWayne Craddock opened fire on his co-workers in a municipal building, the state’s largest city is still struggling to recover.

By

Michael E. Miller

(Read More )