Amid Tight Security, Virginia Gun Rally Draws Thousands of Supporters

pulse

January 21, 2020 6:02 AM

RICHMOND, Va. — Some people streamed in on buses from faraway cities. Others drove cars through the night from places like Indianapolis and Fredericksburg, Texas, logging hundreds of miles and leaning on coffee and Red Bull. Still others came from only a few counties over, but carrying the same vehement message as the rest: Leave gun laws alone.

Amid Tight Security, Virginia Gun Rally Draws Thousands of Supporters

Thousands of people descended on Richmond, the capital of Virginia, on Monday to show support for the rights of gun owners as a push for gun control measures by that state’s newly empowered Democrats has inserted Virginia into a nationwide debate over gun violence and the Second Amendment.

“I don’t like what they are doing to our rights,” said Raymond Pfaff, 85, from Louisa County, Virginia, who wore a yellow sign around his neck that read, “First Gun Control and Then People Control.”

“Guns protected this country for a couple of hundred years, and this two-faced governor just wants to take them,” he said, referring to Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat who has agreed to sign provisions banning guns in parks and limiting handgun purchases if Virginia lawmakers approve them.

Virginia has a long history of supporting gun rights. Only last year, after a mass shooting in Virginia Beach that left 12 people dead, a special lawmaking session on gun control ended in 90 minutes without any action.

But a gradual demographic shift has emerged in the state — suburbs have boomed, and the ratio of Virginians in rural areas has shrunk. When Democrats flipped the state Legislature in the fall and won control of state government for the first time in a generation, they pledged, in part, to swiftly seek new limits to guns.

“People feel their values are under attack and the emerging liberal elite are either unaware or unresponsive,” Bob Holsworth, a political analyst in Richmond, said of the rally, which police said drew 22,000 people to the Virginia state Capitol and the wind-chilled streets around it.

Citing credible “threats of violence,” Northam declared a state of emergency before Monday’s demonstration and temporarily banned all weapons from the Capitol grounds.

About 6,000 people without weapons made their way into the main protest area after waiting in line to go through metal detectors. Thousands more, some proudly displaying firearms and wearing camouflage clothing, packed nearby streets.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .

pulse