Do not dare call this “peaceful”

I suppose it was a good idea. This year it went really bad. The idea was to turn Martin Luther King Day into a “Lobby Day,” a day to talk to your state legislators. On its face this seems reasonable. But over the last few years it has been increasingly a gun lobby day. Using MLK Day – a day to honor a guy killed by a gun – to advocate for guns? This is beyond irony and into desecration. And this year that idea went over the top.

Virginia, with a state legislature now controlled by Democrats, appears to be close to passing a series of gun restrictions. I don’t know the whole package, though one piece is to limit sales to 1 gun a month. These restrictions are favored by about 80% of the citizens of the state.

So the gun people called for what they called a Boogaloo. Come to the state capitol in Richmond and show your support!

Governor Ralph Northan declared a state of emergency around the capitol building in Richmond (capitol of the Confederacy) and urged people to stay home. About 22,000 men (almost all men, almost all white) showed up, with all sorts of big guns strapped to their backs. Guns were banned from the actual event site, so most stayed just outside.

No shots were fired, so the Washington Post declared the event was “peaceful.” Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer says that view is “malarky.”

To the contrary, 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.

Morgan Finkelstein tweeted that an armed militia shutting down a city is not “peaceful.” If it happened anywhere else in the world the *Washington Post* wouldn’t call it that.

Bunch again:

What really happened in Richmond was that men with enough firepower to defeat the Ukrainian army, with the very real threat of violence strapped to their backs, aimed to intimidate not just the state lawmakers just elected by the majority of Virginia voters on a gun-safety platform, but to scare away any citizens wishing to use their 1st Amendment rights to speak out against them.

And the shameful thing is that, on too many levels, it worked.

Terrorism? Yes. People were terrified. Businesses shuttered for the day. Those who live near the capitol evacuated for the day. Lee Carter, a legislator who advocates for the new laws, went to a safe house. Leaders of groups that considered counter protests strongly urged their followers to stay home. Americans were deprived of their right air their grievances of the government by a bullying, armed mob. Wrote Bunch:

Do not dare call this “peaceful.”

It could have been worse. Several leaders of white supremacist groups were arrested last week.

In the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up department, the group calls itself The Base, which in Arabic would be ... al-Qaeda. The goals of those two groups are exactly the same: Fanatical religious and racial purity, enforced by wanton violence against innocent people.

Leah McElrath tweeted:

The “rally” happening today in Richmond, Virginia, isn’t about the Second Amendment.

It’s an effort to try to normalize armed shows of force by Trump supporters.

Trump has no intention of participating in a peaceful transition of power.

David Neiwert of Daily Kos agrees this wasn’t a one-time event. It was the beginning.

Neiwert noted that two months before the event the social media chatter by participants described their eagerness to begin a second civil war. Also disturbing is the large number of rural sheriffs, part of the far-right Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, that say they, not the courts, get to determine if a new law is constitutional.

I got an email from the youth of March for Our Lives. They geared up for Lobby Day and were ready to go. The police said it would not be safe for them to arrive Monday morning and hold a rally outside before speaking to legislators. They wrote:

So we didn’t go Monday morning. We slept on the floor in the Capitol Sunday night instead.

As hundreds of civilians wearing camo, body armor, and carrying deadly weapons surrounded the Capitol yesterday, we were safe inside lobbying our legislators for gun laws that would ensure our schools, homes, and streets would be safe from gun violence.

We met weapons with flowers. We met hate with love. And we met threats and fear tactics with peace and action.

Wonderful kids! They did it right!

Another group (I think Moms Demand Action) also was quite busy on Lobby Day. They set up phone banks and called from the safety of their homes.