Two patriotic Virginia sheriffs have declared they will not enforce Gov. Northam’s “unconstitutional” clampdown on firearms in the state, as more than 20,000 people converged in the streets of Richmond, Virginia on Monday to protest their constitutional right to bear arms.
At Monday’s rally, Sheriff Richard Vaughan of Grayson County said: ‘If the bills go through as proposed, they will not be enforced; they’re unconstitutional.’
Sheriff Scott Jenkins of Culpeper County said : ‘I’m not saying that I will not enforce duly enacted laws, but I’m not saying that I will.‘
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Tens of thousands of patriots arrived in Richmond to demand their rights are respected in the face of tyrannical state gun control laws set to be enacted later this year.
They started arriving before dawn – army veterans, stay-at-home-moms, attorneys, carpenters, African-Americans, republicans – united under banners defending the second amendment and a constitution under attack.
DailyMail report: Many of them came with their guns: AR-15s, long-guns and handguns. Governor Ralph Northam had issued a ban on a list of weapons including guns on Capitol Grounds but though the official rally was confined to a steel pen in the grounds sloping up to Virginia State Capitol, there were more people outside that perimeter and outside the scope of the ban.
Security was tight and visible – hundreds of cops on the streets and in the grounds, screening lanes at the only entrance to the park, the rest of which had been fenced off.
Officials say 7,000 actually entered the rally site and another 15,000 remained in the streets.
On Monday morning, President Trump fanned the flames of the already simmering tensions by tweeting: ‘The Democrat Party in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia are working hard to take away your 2nd Amendment rights.
‘This is just the beginning. Don’t let it happen, VOTE REPUBLICAN in 2020!’
Only one person was arrested at Monday’s protest – 21-year-old Mikaela E. Beschler, 21, of Richmond.
She was arrested for not removing her face mask – which had been banned – despite being warned by police to three times.
Local sheriffs say they will not even enforce the changes if Northam makes them.
‘It’s just rhetoric,’ one observed. ‘What are those fences going to do against bullets? What difference does it make if the rifle is over here or in there?’
Social media posts had told of convoys and militias traveling across states to Virginia to support their ‘brothers and sisters’ and they came in their hundreds.
The official rally, organized by pro-gun advocacy group, The Virginia Citizens Defense League, was slated to start at 8am and end at noon. It is an annual part of Lobby Day – just one event among others as citizens are given the chance to come to the Capitol and lobby on a variety of issues.
Trump tweeted on Monday morning to encourage the protesters
But this year gun control has eclipsed all others and outside Capitol walls brigades assembled. Some distinguished their own ‘soldiers’ from others with armbands made from yellow caution tape.
By 9.30 they had assembled in columns on East 9th Street to the east of the Capitol.
Heavily armed and in military uniform they had, they said, traveled from ‘out of state.’
One who spoke to DailyMail.com described himself simply as ‘former military and a concerned citizen.’
He said, ‘I deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq. I bled repeatedly for this country.
‘I’m here to defend it again.
‘We’re here to be the crowd the governor sees when he looks out of his window.’
These men were not there to give their names.
They were there to make a stand; a show of force, should it be needed.
‘We want to do things the peaceful way,’ one protester said.
‘And that’s what this is but it’s not the only way.’
