Thousands upon thousands of gun owners and supports of the 2nd Amendment flooded the streets of downtown Richmond, Virginia on Monday, and, in spite of the media reporting numerous “threats” of violence, everything went off without a hitch.
For weeks leading up to Monday’s protest, the media and Democrats kept bringing up Charlottesville. They pointed to the fact that since one lady died after being hit by a car at a protest, and used it as proof that this one would be even worse. It wasn’t. Not even close.
In fact, there’s video of some protestors taking the time to clean up after themselves, saying they want to “set an example” of how people are supposed to protest.
MSN reports that one woman was arrested for covering her face with a bandana, which had people asking “does Antifa get arrested for wearing masks?”
At some point I’m going to put together a montage of all the Democrats and talking heads warning of the potential violence, because nearly every outlet covering this story was predicting serious carnage. They didn’t get any, so now it’s back to figuring out how this event was somehow “racist”.
The event was so safe, that MSN reports a man with PTSD felt safe enough to approach gun owners to ask them about the protest.
From MSN:
As the crowd began to thin out, however, one heated conversation drew a small gathering of onlookers.
“Why do you need to have that gun?” Paul Karns asked a 19-year-old in a black leather jacket with a massive .338-caliber Lapua precision rifle slung proudly over his shoulder.
“Don’t let him antagonize you!” someone shouted behind the teen.
“If the military has it, then I can have it,” added another onlooker.
“Are you in the military?” Karns replied. “Have you been trained?”
The issue was intensely personal for Karns, a writer who was working not far away when he decided to check out the rally.
Twenty years ago, he said, he was in graduate school at the University of Arkansas when he witnessed a disgruntled student shoot and kill a faculty member — a shooting that made national news. A few years later, Karns himself was shot when he intervened to help a neighbor. He said the incidents had left him with PTSD, a scar on his shoulder and a belief that people shouldn’t be allowed to own “military-grade” weapons.
Mr. Karns was the victim of gun violence and had PTSD. Yet, he felt safe enough with all these guns around to approach people in the crowd, as opposed to allowing his PTSD to take over and cause him to flee for the safety of his life. If that isn’t a testament to “guns make people safer”, I’m not sure what is. This guy admits guns give him PTSD, and yet, he approaches gun owners! That’s a guy who feels secure, and safe.
Some folks were quite unhappy about the lack of violence. One of those individuals is elected member of congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
While speaking at Blackout for Human Rights: MLK Now 2020 in Harlem’s Riverside Church, the House Democrat was angered by the protester’s seemingly not destroying their cities like BLM protestors.
“There’s this gun rights protest happening down in Richmond,” she began as the event’s host said, “On MLK day!”
“On MLK day!” Ocasio-Cortez said before contrasting the Richmond rally with the Baltimore, Maryland, riots following the 2015 death of Freddie Gray while he was in police custody.
I wonder what’s different about the gun rally, and the Baltimore riots… Can you spot it in the picture?
“But here’s the image that has struck with me the most about that. When we go out and march for the dignity and the recognition of the lives of people like Freddie Gray and Eric Garner, the whole place is surrounded by police in riot gear without a gun in sight. And here are all of these people flying Confederate flags, with semi-automatic weapons, and there’s almost no police officers at that protest,” she said.
She added, “Who or what are our institutions protecting from whom? That image conveys it all.”
First of all, there were definitely police there. The difference between the events is that this one, full of responsible, law-abiding citizens, didn’t break out in violence. There weren’t groups of people throwing rocks through windows of stores. You didn’t see kids running out of a convenience store with bags of goodies. You saw people focused on their mission, and they didn’t allow any riffraff to tear down the cause.
Businesses that stayed open during the protest reportedly did very well, which is another thing that differentiates this “riot” from others. A local Richmond coffee shop reportedly ran out of milk, and had trash bins overflowing as customers flocked to the store during the protest.
“I did catch a lot of grief at first,” said Sefton Coffee Co. owner Jennie Skinner. “Friends, family, people down here couldn’t believe I was staying open… “Everyone has been beyond pleasant. In fact, it was kind of fun.”
Protestors said that the event didn’t go according to the media’s plans.
“It was the opposite of what they expected, and what they wanted,” said one man in a “Three Percent” militia shirt who declined to give his name. “I think they set it up to be a powder keg. They kept saying ‘Charlottesville, Charlottesville, Charlottesville.’ ”
Nearby, men with guns on their hips bent to scrape stray stickers representing the Virginia Civil Defense League — a pro-gun advocacy group — off the pavement or to pick up random garbage off the street.
“People said there were all these potential problems,” said Alex Olenic, 74. “But there isn’t even any trash.”
After spending the previous weeks warning his constituents of the violence that would soon take place, Governor Northam backtracked, saying it turns out people who own guns aren’t violent or crazy.
“Thousands of people came to Richmond to make their voices heard. Today showed that when people disagree, they can do so peacefully,” Northam said in a statement. “The issues before us evoke strong emotions, and progress is often difficult. I will continue to listen to the voices of Virginians, and I will continue to do everything in my power to keep our Commonwealth safe.”
Remember, this is after calling for a state of emergency banning all guns on the Capitol (that didn’t even work, shocker). Governor Northam and his fellow Democrats are too afraid of having a conversation over gun rights. They just want to ban guns, and expect gun owners to go along with it because they said so.
When people came to the Capitol to protest these laws, Democrats hid behind Capitol police, and said they feared “real, credible” threats that this event would be worse than Charlottesville. It wasn’t.
Imagine how angry Democrats and the media must be after nothing bad happened. It’s sad to think fellow Americans would want other Americans to get hurt, but that’s what happens when the left is trying to push an agenda. They would rather people get hurt so they can say “see, guns are bad!” than actually have a conversation about why it’s important for people to own and be trained in how to use a firearm.
The left wanted violence so they could ignore the issue and simply use emotional appeals to say “see, you want people to get hurt!” However, nobody got hurt.
The people at the rally in Virginia yesterday showed the country that gun owners are more sensible than protesting groups that the media typically praises. The media defends Antifa and BLM when they are destroying towns, but they think gun owners are the problem.
They call them “white supremacists” and “Nazis” while ignoring the millions of non-white people that own guns. They spew their racism by assuming only white people are capable of legally possessing a firearm.
Then, they wonder why the police didn’t do anything when they saw people carrying guns around. Seriously, how freaking stupid do you have to be to ask that question?
“Hey, why didn’t you go confront the guys with the big guns?”
Hey, AOC, um…. because they have guns. That’s why. Guns work well against tyranny.
If anything, I think we all learned a valuable lesson: everyone is a lot nicer when a bunch of people with guns are walking around. There’s some food for thought.
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