Thousands of people promised to descend upon Northern Virginia in order to protest the encroachment of gun laws and to support the current legal state of the Second Amdendment. So far the protests have been peaceful with no major events taking place.
Thousands of gun rights supporters from Virginia and across the country gathered in Richmond on Monday for a rally in opposition to gun-control laws being advanced by the General Assembly’s new Democratic majority. After threats and indications of potential violence, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) ordered a state of emergency and banned guns from Capitol Square; other advocates who would normally come to the Capitol for citizens’ Lobby Day mostly stayed away. Those willing to shed their weapons listened to a series of speakers denounce the governor and decry any attempts to limit gun purchases. Others, who remained armed, packed the streets outside the Capitol complex. (source)
Many people are watching this to see what would happen, or if there will be violence. While it is still possible that something will take place, it is highly unlikely.
Something that one notes about protests in the US, especially where people are calling for violence or attempting to goad people into supporting violent actions, means that there probably is a sinister motive coming from the government herself, who wants violence to justify brutal police actions.
This is not an uncommon phenomena. The entire “white nationalist” movement has been known to be since the 1960s, and possibly going back to the 1920s, to be an extension of the various intelligence programs run on the American people that use tension in society in order to justify the expansion of government and the erosion of rights and freedoms enjoyed by the masses. The entire notion of “false flag” attacks is not a fiction, but a historical reality going back thousands of years from governments and is used today in order to justify militarism, war, and other forms of extreme measures.
I am not going to go into an extensive history about this right now, for we have written about it in the Shoebat archives. The point here is that violence, while it is well-known that it can have a purpose that serves a good, often times should be avoided because it not only does not serve the common good, but it hurts innocent people and causes more damage to a cause that is more difficult or sometimes unable to be fixed. This is especially true in the US, where in spite of all the talk about “freedom”, the US government is extremely brutal in how she handles even the most minor dispute.
One only need to look at American police videos versus those in foreign countries to see this. In Israel, Palestinians regularly throw rocks and Israeli soldiers, and Israeli soldiers regularly attack Palestinians, yet one does not see either side just pulling out guns and shooting people in these contexts. In nations such as India, Thailand, Pakistan, and other nations, where police carry submachine guns in public, when people attack or threaten violence, the tendency is not to just start shooting, but to try to stop the people. Sometimes, these people who attack are not even arrested, but just repelled.
Compare this with the US, where while it is known that the police have stressful jobs and a lot of legalism they must go through, and while they do need to use violence at times, many American cops are more than happy to play “video games” with people, shooting them to death for minor or sometimes non-incidents and then being protected by the legal system, which almost universally sides with the police and completely ignores the fact that if an average man defended himself in more legally stable grounds, that citizen would likely face decades in jail for “murder” charges.
This is why the Virginia gun protests are so interesting, because in spite of online provocateurs on places such as 4Chan, the protests have been peaceful. There was talk of “white nationalist” groups (read: most likely government with a mix of “useful fools”) trying to stir up angst, but they have not materialized, and so far it has been peaceful.
When one hears about “violence” and the need to “stand up” or “take back” something in the West, especially in the US, one needs to be extremely careful and should probably avoid it altogether, or if one is crazy enough to go, to make sure to be openly peaceful, extremely legal about how one approaches ones actions, and film what happens, preferably to an off-site location, and to stay with a group of people that one knows and not to leave.
Of course, the government could send in any group she wants in order to cause trouble. This does not seem to have happened with this, because the result of this protest is likely going to be helping Trump get re-elected, since the people there are just showing themselves to be exercising their legal rights, and not indulging in extreme activities. It gives the image that the right wing and those who support firearms are (and most indeed are) peaceful people who want to exercise their rights, and that no matter what others call them, the opposite is true, and if that is the case, people will be allowed to infer that this is a reason they should vote Republican in the coming election.
This protest does not really do anything for the Second Amendment’s status in Virginia. What it does is help further Republican political narratives at a politically opportune time and seems to be being exploited for that. It is something that has been hyped up, but likely is not going to mean anything outside of this event.