23 January 2008

Great Report From Weekend Virginia Counter-Protest; State Senate Ultimately Rejects 3 Bad Gun Control Bills

I strongly urge you to take some time to read this report from the weekend counter-protest staged over the weekend outside the Virginia General Assembly building. Photos included. Pro-self defense advocates outnumbered the antis 2 to 1. Many were armed and no one got shot. It was probably the safest place to be in Virginia that day, though gun controllers would never admit it.

The good guys won this round. Three gun control measures were defeated in the Virginia Senate just yesterday and today, and a big reason (besides the senseless nature of the proposals) was the ongoing efforts of the Virginia Citizen’s Defense League. One of the bills was to close the so-called "gun show loophole," which, as everyone knows, isn't a loophole and was not a factor in the Virginia Tech shootings last year. If they only had a brain. Fortunately, senators did think it through and made the common sense choice. Check out the reaction by anti-gun senators to the defeat of the gun show sales ban bill.

Back to the report on the weekend protest/counter-protest. In this piece, the author notes something that has been echoed in other states (fellow blogger Ahab over in Indiana has noticed it, too), as well as here before our own Ohio General Assembly. The people who want to pass gun bans and stringent regulations are often very angry. I haven't seen it always. But when it comes out, you see it in their eyes and their body language. It manifested itself in a big way (and opened my eyes) when several of these advocates for registration of people and firearms refused to step onto an elevator with me a couple of years ago. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, perhaps they wanted to plot strategy in private. Or. . . .

The report from Virginia about the counter-protest to the “lie-in,” the latter staged by a new anti organization -- "Protest Easy Guns" -- is a long read, but definitely worth your time. Please see what can happen when people ACTUALLY get involved, instead of just sitting back and firing off emails to their legislators.

Kudos to SailorCurt at Captain of a Crew of One for his excellent overview of the events this past weekend. And congrats to all the folks at VCDL for a job well done!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This reminds me of that day back in the early 1990s when we drew 20,000 people to the Ohio Statehouse for a protest. They did not know what to think of it, but the state backed down on some really bad news gun proposals. This Virginia group really did a great thing. Great to read about this.