State of emergency: High tension in Virginia as right-wing

Post Reply New Topic

Police praise peaceful crowd, but caution that rally is far from over
As the crowds grew on Richmond’s streets and the lines coming through the screening for Capitol Square slowed, police said they were pleased the morning had remained relatively uneventful.

Virginia State Police 1st Sgt. James White noted the small number of incidents at the metal detectors. For much of the morning, rallygoers entering through 17 separate gates — many of them clad in metal buckles, boot grommets and heavy zippers — had quietly shed the problematic clothes as officers passed handheld detectors over their bodies.
“Ninety-nine point nine percent of the people are peaceful,” White said.

Charley Pierce, a retired federal employee from Nelson County, said most gun rights activists in Richmond have no issue with police.

“Everything is great,” said Pierce, who was not carrying a weapon. “The police are doing their jobs and doing it well."

Still, White kept a worried eye on the area just outside the fenced-in screening posts, where other protesters — many clad in camouflage and balaclavas — toted weapons, chanted, paraded and cheered for their cause.

Inside restricted rally area: No guns, but also no bathrooms
Inside the pen, some activists wondered whether the main event was really outside the fenced-in area they’d waited so long to enter.
The much thicker crowd on the streets below had the look of Times Square on New Year’s Eve, with people shoulder to shoulder. While there was some early morning chanting on the square, the crowd seemed to mellow by late morning as sounds from the more raucous street gathering floated up. Wild applause, whistling and a militia’s fife and drum corps on the streets mixed with the sounds of multiple police helicopters whirring overhead.

On the streets, people were free to carry guns. And they had access to rows and rows of portable toilets, provided courtesy of VCDL. Those inside the pen had to give up their guns. Gone, too, was any chance for a bathroom break.
On the upside, there was plenty of room to mill around on the grassy square, even with many hundreds inside

Gun rights activists sport heavy weaponry
“Is that automatic?” a stranger asked Brandon Lewis.
The gun in Lewis’s hands was enormous: a .50-caliber Barrett M82A1 rifle, more commonly seen on battlefields than in downtown Richmond. Lewis — who drove down from Bergen, N.Y., where he owns a shooting range — showed up dressed in a helmet and bulletproof vest, one of scores of protesters who opted to attend the rally heavily armed.

“This sends a strong visual message,” Lewis said, patting his rifle. “The government is not above us. They are us.”

Elsewhere in the crowd, Justin Burns, 19, and his friend Spencer George, 30, flaunted their own arsenals: Both had strapped assault-style rifles across their chests, with bullets visible in the clips. Spanning the men’s bulletproof vests were more ammo clips.
The duo, both welders, had driven 10 hours to attend the rally. They brought the rifles, Burns said, in case anything goes wrong.

“All it takes is one person to make a bad decision and fire off a round for things to go sideways,” Burns said.
Clutching his AR-15-style rifle, George said it felt “awesome” to see so many gun-toting gun rights activists gathered in one place. The sea of weaponry, he said, made him feel less alone.

Earlier in the day, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones drove toward Capitol Square in an armored vehicle. Passing bemused pedestrians, Jones — standing half-out of a port atop the Humvee — shouted into a microphone about 1776, the Founding Fathers and “tyranny.”

with bullets visible in the clips

The Dukes of Hazzard was comedy so the boys get a free pass calling their classic car the "General Lee"

*twitches*

It seems all of the crazies have shown up for this:

http://huffp.st/7FOoc5Q

It’s one thing to be pro gun, and another entirely to be an extremist right wing white supremacist seeking to set off mass chaos.

It seems all of the crazies have shown up for this:

http://huffp.st/7FOoc5Q

It’s one thing to be pro gun, and another entirely to be an extremist right wing white supremacist seeking to set off mass chaos.

By crazies, do you only mean the ones that showed up holding assault rifles or is there another class I am missing?

More so the white supremacist neo Nazis who’s intent was to create chaos. And the guy who got caught trying to sneak up to a rooftop.

I don’t really care much about some guys with guns. Whoopee. It’s the ones that had the intention of making things violent that are crazies, not the ones peacefully walking around holding their weapons safely as a peaceful protest. They’re just gun nuts, not completely nuts.

Nothing is happening, it's a peaceful gathering.

Be positive,
There is still time.

Well, it's over now and nothing happened. s**t! I was hoping for carnage! I wanted to see blood spurting, body parts flying, and general chaos and destruction!

Oh, well! Maybe next rally.

Atleast it is hockey season. You should be able to see blood squirting and Carnage on ESPN.