Virginia Gun Rally: Waving Flags and Chants of 'USA'

Hoping to head off trouble, the state has set up a security perimeter around the Capitol grounds and has banned weapons — including firearms — from the area inside. Police officers guarded the area with the help of bomb-sniffing dogs, and people entering the perimeter through the single entrance were being screened with metal detectors.

Even so, plenty of demonstrators came armed to Richmond, and officials worried that confrontations could develop just outside that entrance or in the surrounding streets, where weapons will still be allowed.

Rally speakers include a plaintiff in a landmark gun-rights case.

The landmark 2008 Supreme Court decision holding that the Second Amendment protected an individual’s right to keep and bear arms is known as the Heller decision, after Dick Heller, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit that overturned a gun-control law in the District of Columbia.

When Heller addressed the rally in Richmond on Monday, the crowd listened with rapt attention.

He got a big reaction when he quoted part of the amendment’s text: “Let’s yell it to them, so the media and left Legislature can hear it: The right of the people to keep and bear arms will not be infringed!” The crowd roared the end of the sentence along with him.

And when he asked the crowd, “Do we need gun control in Virginia?,” the crowd roared back, “No!”

Another speaker, Sheriff Scott Jenkins of Culpeper County, Virginia, who has long been outspoken in advocating gun rights, told the crowd, “I ask that you all return to your homes and ask your elected officials, where is the line they will not cross?”

Thousands of people have converged on Richmond for the day.

Pro-gun advocates walked through Richmond streets armed with military-style rifles Monday morning, and demonstrators from across the country carried signs and wore stickers with slogans like “Don’t tread on our gun rights” and “Guns Save Lives.”

The rally was organized by the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a well-known Second Amendment advocacy organization in the state. The group has said it expected the protest to be peaceful. But it has also accepted offers of help from militia groups to provide security for the rally, and friction with counterprotesters is possible during the event and afterward.

No incidents or arrests have been reported so far.

As of 10 a.m., there had been no reported incidents in the area of the Capitol grounds, only large crowds, according to a senior Virginia law enforcement official. Richmond police said there had been no arrests.

Inside the Capitol grounds, a peaceful crowd held banners and flags, and shouts of “USA” swelled in the background. The area took on a festive atmosphere, with tunes being played on instruments that sounded like flutes and piccolos. Monty Sellers, a Capitol Police officer who was standing at the entrance with a small metal count clicker, said that as of 10:30 a.m., 5,482 people had entered the Capitol grounds.

At the same time, a swelling crowd jammed the surrounding streets, appearing to outnumber those inside the grounds for the rally.

Weapons are allowed outside the security perimeter, and demonstrators walked through the area carrying firearms and flags, as if on parade. There were military-style rifles, shotguns, 9-millimeter handguns, .45- and .22-caliber pistols, and even a man carrying .50-caliber sniper rifle.

Chris Dement, 22, said he was glad to see that the demonstration was peaceful so far. He said he brought a 9-millimeter carbine to stand in solidarity, but was prepared to use it for self-defense in case of violence.

“It’s never out of the realm of possibility,” he said.

Demonstrators came from as far away as Indiana and Texas.

Richmond was alive with activity as early as 6 a.m. as clusters of people made their way toward the Capitol. The traffic downtown included a Jeep flying an American flag, and numerous pickup trucks.

Logan Smith, 25, a transmission plant worker from Indianapolis, said he set out Saturday night and drove in his black Dodge Charger for 9 hours and 46 minutes to reach Richmond on Sunday. Standing in a teal sweatshirt in the early morning cold Monday, his hands in his pockets, he watched the line for entrance to the Capitol grounds start to snake around the block.

“I see how it matters — it matters to me back home,” Smith said of gun rights. Referring to the gun regulations bills before the Virginia legislature, he said, “Seeing stuff like this being pushed, it doesn’t sit well.”

Around the corner, a whoop went up from a small crowd when several men unfurled a large cloth banner with a long gun emblazoned on the front.

Teri Horne, 51, stood on the sidewalk directly across from the entrance to the Capitol grounds, with a Smith & Wesson M&P 15T rifle straddled around her shoulder and a Texas flag at her side. Horne, of Quitman, Texas, and about three dozen others from the women’s chapter of Open Carry Texas drove about 24 hours from Texas “to support the people in Virginia.”

A group of other Texans wearing camouflage-pattern clothes approached Horne and asked if they could take a photograph with her. Another man walked over to offer her a National Association For Gun Rights sticker.

“This is where freedom began, right here, and this is what they’re doing to the people of Virginia,” Horne said. “Thomas Jefferson, he was a very livid character, he would have some strong words to say.”

Lev Huntington, 77, who owns firearms, has a concealed carry permit and belongs to the Virginia Citizens Defense League, the group organizing the rally, traveled from Virginia Beach. He said he knew others who wanted to attend, but were afraid because of the threats of violence.

“They write to me and said, ‘I’m not going tomorrow, because things might get tough and I got to think about the kids,’” Huntington said. “I said, ‘This is about the kids.’”

In online chats, extremists warned against attending.

The rally has been a frequent topic of discussion on internet platforms that are popular among anti-government militia groups and white supremacists. Many users expressed interest in attending the rally. But over the weekend, white-supremacist chat rooms began to overflow with warnings against attending.

Many suggested that participants were being set up for a government trap where they would either be blamed for any violence that broke out, or would even be the targets of violence themselves.

Those warnings continued Monday from members of anti-government militias, white supremacists and others who were in Richmond. The message “Don’t go in the cage” was posted repeatedly on Twitter, along with comments like “Flood the rest of Richmond instead.”

It was unclear whether such groups would attend the rally in force.

Democrats in Virginia are pushing for gun control.

For years, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday, which falls early in the legislative session, has been a day for ordinary Virginians and advocacy groups to talk with state legislators about issues that concern them, in a tradition known as “Lobby Day.”

This year, gun rights groups made especially big plans, after control of the Legislature flipped in the November election.

After a generation of dominance by Republicans sympathetic to gun rights, the state Senate and House of Delegates are now run by Democrats who want to impose tighter regulations — measures that have become increasingly popular in the state, especially after a gunman fatally shot 12 people in May in Virginia Beach.

The state Senate approved three gun control bills last week that the House of Delegates could approve as early as this week.

The prospect of new laws restricting firearms has met with stiff opposition in the state’s rural areas. Since November, more than 100 municipalities have declared themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries” — a purely symbolic step but one that highlights the widening rift in Virginia between its cities and its rural areas, which have been losing population and political power for years.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .