The more I ponder the mass demonstration being promoted by the Virginia Citizens Defense League for the annual Lobby Day at the Richmond Capitol, the more it looks like a disaster in the making. I wish it were otherwise, but I see many times more downside risk than possible upside benefit.
RICHMOND: THE MOTHER OF ALL BUFFALO JUMPS – Matt Bracken
Read the whole thing, please.
“me percentage of the Second Amendment crowd (or anti-gun trolls posing as such in order to discredit them) will show up wearing camouflage while waving long guns,”
I am sure it will happen. The amount of political blindness on our side to the Optics the media wants to capture to ridicule us is just amazing. There is a reason why the Democrats are feeling bold enough to even restrict Open Carry more in the State of Florida.
Not to mention the fact that these “gun free” zones are favorite targets of the leftists. Not surprised if they go in there and shoot the crowd up.
I continue to advocate for people directly contacting their representatives.
At the same time, I’m looking at the silencing of our voices.
_Bearing Arms_ is currently reporting that the VA governor has declared a state of emergency from Friday to Monday for the capital square with a statement that the capital square is a “shelter” and therefore he has the right to ban weapons in that shelter.
We are being silenced, even by our supporters. Thousands of people show up and some of our biggest and brightest voices (Miguel, J. Kb, Matt Bracken) are telling us “It’s a bad idea to show up in mass, you’ll be painted as ….”
The media, the politicians, the infringers are all set up to find any bad actors, planted or otherwise, to paint us in a bad light, therefore we shouldn’t show up.
How bad would it look if only a few 100 showed up at this point? You can see the headlines.
It reminds me of the one guy that showed up at a Tea Party event with the racists/hateful sign. Before he was even noticed by the crowd attending, the media had swarmed over him, asking his opinions, shoving cameras in his face, getting lots of pictures. And that was the lead for that event.
After that, Tea Party organizers would have designated people with finger signs saying “NOT WITH US” and if one of those types of people tried to infiltrate a few people with signs would be there pushing their signs into the cameras.
I hate where we have gone. My voice is being silenced. A few dozen infringers show up and the Media paints them as a crowd of 1000s with camera angles, a few 10,000s show up to support our rights and the Media paints the one (or two) bad actors as representing ever one of those “extreme right wing gun-nuts”
Idiot firewall at workplace claims linky is “hate speech.” RME
I have a better explanation: the managers of that thing are wanna be fascists.
Seeing this more and more here. Probably time to bail from this place and leave these jr. fascists to their little mind games.
Yeah, Matthew Bracken is not very much appreciated, specially since he wrote “What I Saw At The Coup”
https://gunfreezone.net/matthew-brackens-what-i-saw-at-the-coup/
I’ve encountered Mr. Bracken before, though we don’t always agree (I think he’s a trifle pessimistic; then again, he does have his points).
That being said, there’s no way the VCDL can’t show up for this. It’s a Sophie’s Choice: stay home, and Governor Blackface talks shit about how ‘there’s no opposition’, or show up, and face provocation and said Governor crying about ‘intimidation’.
Seriously, some of these bills are horrifying. Pretty much ban every centerfire rifle in production, and most pistols.
All we can do is hope Someone is watching.
I’ve been thinking about this recently, and I can only wonder: do “optics” (hate that term btw) even matter anymore? Like someone above said, no matter what our side says, no matter what our side does, we are villified. And if we are squeaky clean, we are ignored. The people in charge… just aren’t listening anymore. So, does looking like a peaceful crowd matter when it makes no difference? Or maybe, just maybe, if a show of guaranteed repercussions is shown, *maybe* that will make the difference?
I dunno, really. But I think everyone that matters has more or less made up their minds and “optics” has very little sway anymore. What comes after that?
I disagree. If they don’t show up the MSM will say “see it’s just a small group that is opposing this”. Then they will be more inclined to pass more anti-gun laws. If thousands show up it sends a message not only to Va. but to all.
So… are VCDL the models to follow for gun rights activism (previous post on them), or fools being lured into a trap?
There’s an old story about Society for Creative Anachronism members going to a protest with suspiciously tough signs on bamboo poles. Just sayin’.
BTW, the “state of emergency” declaration is a joke. How can an open-air square be a “shelter”?
At some point this feels like “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” and I think that’s what the Left wants.
Scenario 1: All the pro-gun people show up, are 100% peaceful with no Nazi stuff anywhere.
Some Leftist agitators, get their pictures taken being assholes and the media run with them as the face of the pro-gun movement.
Politicians vote for gun control to punish the pro-gun straw men.
Leftists take pics of the pro-gun people and use weaponized social media to destroy them.
We lose.
Scenario 2: Pro gun avoids showing up so not to fall into a trap. Politicians vote for gun control because there is no public opposition.
We lose.
I refuse to cede everything to to forces of tyranny because they set the narrative.
Alternately, if they do get 50,000 people there, the VCDL could overwhelm Capitol police, storm the buildings, drag Northam and his LtGov out, and hang them from the lampposts before God and everyone.
What? A man can dream, can’t he?
Only if you understand that once that switch is flipped, that comfortable life you know and enjoy will cease to exist.
*shrug* I just spent an hour trying to convince someone that we shouldn’t reestablish the Hays Code with government backing.
And I was just informed I was stupid because James O’Keefe is ‘dodgy’ and ‘fabricates evidence’.
It’s coming anyways. Fast or slow.
Alsinky was a genius. And evil genius, but a genius nonetheless.
Rules #1, 6, 9, and 13 are applicable here.
And, the leftists are a lot better at applying the rules than those on the right.
This situation is starting to be noticed in the Conservative Blogs.
http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=385311
Yep, this is going to be a good thing. The optics of not showing up are much worse than showing up with a few kooks. The media will always try to paint us as kooks. I don’t care. Show up, exercise your rights, and lets see what happens
We simply cannot sit this one out. Do as Philip Van Cleave said and alert the police if somebody starts acting stupid. If they want to get violent, pepper spray is still allowed. This really is our last chance to show a unified opposition to these bills during this session outside of writing and calling. Lobby day is a major part of the VCDL.
Idk man the apparant organizers acknowledge all the downsides and rightly point out they’re fucked either way and explcitly state this as an act of civil disobedience and not violence. Not that that will matter as we are never treated in good faith, and they acknowledge as much.
I do admire them for putting their balls on the chopping block and I think the real danger is 3 armed guys showing up and not 300 or 3000. Also isn’t this something mike vanderbeogh had done many times himself? I remember him distinctly being on of the few who said fuck you CT come at me.
The reason I think the real danger is turnout is because I don’t think this event, even if shotting starts will be enough to kick off anything more consequential than the event itself. I could be wrong but it could just as easily be the event needed for people to say fuck me we all need to calm down a bit.
Also let us not be deluded, they vote for gun control no matter what. We’ve seen it many many time before, why should this time be any different?