Virginia Lobby Day Summary

[Nemo]

Read it all.   Photos did not copy over.  Best bet is to click link below and read it all there, with pics for proper context.

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VCDL Lobby Day 2020

This is Part 1 in a six part series documenting VCDL's Lobby Day 2020, which was held on January 20, 2020 in Richmond, Virginia.  The world exploded in November 2019 and, with the General Assembly wrapping up, I am just now at a place where I can begin to cover that extraordinary event!

The remaining parts of this series will be coming out over the next few weeks.

Enjoy!

Philip Van Cleave
 
Part 1. Prelude: Immediately after the 2019 election, Democrats declare war on gun owners and the Virginia political map changes color, from mixed red and blue, to pretty much solid green
THE ALARM WAS SOUNDED, BUT NOT EVERYONE WAS PAYING ATTENTION

VCDL had been screaming to anyone who would listen, that the election in November 2019 was not going to be business as usual.  It was going to be absolutely critical, more than ever before, that gun owners support pro-gun candidates and vote. 

Unfortunately, too many gun owners either weren't registered to vote, were "too busy" to vote, thought their vote "wouldn't count," or simply were not listening or paying attention to what was going on around them.

Mostly through court gerrymandering,  the Democrats squeaked out a win in the election, giving them a narrow, but complete, control of everything.  They (and Michael Bloomberg, who bought them) now owned the House of Delegates, the Senate, the Governor's office, the Lt. Governor's office, and the Attorney General's office. 

There was no longer a firewall at all to protect Virginia's gun owners from whatever horrendous gun control might be introduced in the General Assembly in January, 2020.  The only hope was the courts would uphold the U.S. and Virginia Constitutions - a fight that could take years and would be extremely expensive.

And the Democrats wasted no time in making it clear that law-abiding gun owners were going to get hit, and hit hard. 

Michael Bloomberg wanted the millions of dollars he had donated to help Democrats win their elections, be repaid by passing strong gun-control in Virginia.

Besides paying back Bloomberg, there were two other reasons Governor Northam had made gun control a major agenda item.  The Governor wanted to take attention away from his racism, and even more importantly, comments he had made during a radio interview where he came out in support of state-sanctioned murder of babies who survived an abortion and were born. 

Dr. Mengele would have been proud of Northam's calm and clinical description of how the murder of a living baby would be performed.  But Virginians, even those who are pro-choice, were disgusted and horrified.

So to begin implementing Northam's agenda, Senator Dick Saslaw pre-filed SB 16, which redefined "assault weapons" to cover a wide variety of common, semi-automatic firearms and outlawed all of them.  SB 16 also banned magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, suppressors, and bump stocks.  After July 1, 2020, all those items would be contraband and the state would not compensate gun owners for them, even if destroyed or turned over to the police.  Mere possession of those items after July 1 would be a FELONY.  SB 16 was a top agenda-item for Bloomberg.

Law-abiding gun owners, who had legally bought their guns and had no intention of harming anyone who was not trying to harm them, could have their firearms confiscated and be headed to prison.

Other bills to pacify Bloomberg included: One Handgun a Month, Universal Background Checks, Red Flag laws, prohibitions on children having access to firearms, drastically reducing reciprocity with other states, more restrictions on ranges, and allowing local government to have complete control over the possession, carry, transportation, and storage of firearms!  That wasn't all the bills, either.

 
THE DEMOCRATS HAD DECLARED AN ALL OUT WAR ON VIRGINIA'S GUN OWNERS AND IN DOING SO, THEY HAD FINALLY AWAKENED A SLEEPING GIANT AND THAT GIANT WAS NOT HAPPY.  GUN OWNERS RETURNED FIRE WITH SECOND AMENDMENT SANCTUARIES.

About the time of the election, the Carroll County Board of Supervisors did the first Second Amendment Sanctuary resolution, followed shortly by Campbell County doing the same thing. 

We realized the potential of such resolutions in the upcoming battle in the General Assembly in January.  The resolutions, if there were enough localities doing them, would get the attention of the General Assembly.  The resolutions would also encourage sheriffs and police departments not to enforce unconstitutional gun laws and Commonwealth Attorneys not to prosecute those in violation of those laws.  Finally, sanctuary localities would be very unlikely to enact any local gun control if given the chance to do so by the General Assembly.

It was a win, win, win, and VCDL jumped in with both feet. 

VCDL developed a model Second Amendment Sanctuary resolution that was provided to localities which were considering, or being asked to consider, passing such a resolution.  We helped coordinate with local members to get the word out about upcoming Board of Supervisor, City Council, and Town Council meetings. The idea was to create large turnouts in support of the locality becoming a sanctuary.

The results were better than we had dreamt possible.  Between local grassroots efforts and VCDL's membership participation and coordination, we were seeing turnouts of between 500 to 600 people at local government meetings that were lucky to have 10 people there normally, and 50 on an incredibly busy night!  Meeting rooms were overflowing, phones ringing off the walls, and email in-boxes jammed.

My first interaction with the coming tidal wave was early into the movement when I attended my first sanctuary meeting, which was in Amherst County on November 19, 2019.  It had taken a few hours for me to drive there and I needed to "hit the head" after having a diet drink on the way up.  I thought that I would simply park my car in the Amherst government building parking lot and run in to use the restroom. 

When I got close to the meeting, my jaw dropped.  Crowds of people were crossing the street to get to the meeting.  The parking lot was full, the building was overflowing, with the crowd outside the building wrapping around the parking lot, and that was well before the meeting was scheduled to start!  So much for "running in" to use the restroom and then getting a seat in the meeting room!  I would be lucky to get in the building...

I brought a roll of 1,000 Guns Save Lives stickers and they were handed out to those in attendance.  Thanks to the efforts of ex-Speaker of the House of Delegates, Vance Wilkins, I got into the building and was given the chance to address the Board of Supervisors.  The size of that meeting was probably 500 to 600.  This photo shows the large meeting room on the left, filled to capacity, with a crowd filling the hallway, staircase, foyer, extending out the door, and around the parking lot:



The next night I attended the Amelia County meeting.  When I arrived, I realized that this was going to be a big turnout, too - I was elated!  Sure enough, there were over 600 people at that meeting.  I had the opportunity to address both the Board of Supervisors AND the large overflow crowd outside the building.  Senator Amanda Chase and Delegate John McGuire also addressed the crowd.  Like the gun owners in Amherst, the Amelia crowd was motivated.  It was absolutely wonderful to behold.  This photo shows part of the crowd outside.  The meeting room and hallway were filled to capacity, too:



At first the Democrats said that this was an "Appalachian thing" and it wouldn't spread.

But they were wrong.  Places like Virginia Beach, Fauquier County, Prince William County, Spotsylvania County, and Amelia County started looking at becoming sanctuaries.  The Appalachia theory dried up and blew away.  Crowd sizes were now up to at least 1,000 at local government meetings.

Starting to feel a little panicky, the gun controllers were writing letters to the editor criticizing VCDL and saying that the sanctuaries were no big deal and would have no affect. 

That didn't deter the movement, either.  More localities came sanctuaries and the crowd sizes were between 1,000 and 1,500.  That "no big deal" had taken on a life of its own.

The movement began spreading like a wildfire and real panic set it for the Democrats.  Congressman McEachin did one of the dumbest political stunts I have seen in a long time.  He decided to throw gasoline on a roaring fire to put it out.  He told the press that the Governor could call out the National Guard to force localities to enforce new state gun laws.

At the same time to help slow down or stop the sanctuary movement, Senator Saslaw talked down his own bill - SB 16.  He said that he had forgot to put in "grandfathering" that would allow gun owners to keep their semi-automatic firearms if they registered them, but no new sales would be allowed.  Larger magazines, suppressors, and bump stock will still have to be destroyed or surrendered, though.

Instead of being intimidated at the thought of the National Guard being called out, or selfishly giving in so that they could keep their semi-automatic guns, while denying the next generated of gun owners that same right, gun owners now showed up in record crowds of 2,000 to 3,000+ people!  They filled and overflowed large gymnasiums, with traffic alerts going out at 7 and 8 pm due to country roads being jammed in all directions!

I was so damned proud of every one of those patriots!  Because of their efforts, now sanctuaries were popping up across the state almost daily.  Sometimes six or more at a time!

Here is part of the attendance at the Bedford County meeting:



And about a quarter of the Rockingham County attendance:


The wildfire continued to burn across the state, until 96% of the counties and 94% of the state were sanctuaries.  That number continues to grow.  Currently there are 147 sanctuaries!

The map of Virginia is now almost totally green (the sanctuary color), including many areas that tend to vote Democrat.  The message was clear, with both Democrats and Republicans hearing it.  The Republican Party actually woke up in the middle of the movement and began registering tons of new voters at these hearings.  The number of speakers topping over 100 in some cases.  The gun controllers were pretty much no shows at these hearings.

(Thanks to member Rick Sandlin for the map.)

The one attempt at repealing a sanctuary status fails

After the election in November, the incoming Board of Supervisors in Prince William County was now predominantly controlled by Democrats.  The new chairwoman vowed she would repeal the County's sanctuary resolution, passed in December by the previous Board, as the first order of business in early January. 

When that meeting finally came, the new Board moved the time of the meeting from the evening to 2 pm, in the middle of the work day, to minimize attendance by gun owners.

It didn't work.  Thousands of gun owners flooded the building and over 120 of them spoke against any such repeal!  The shocked Board voted to drop the repeal from their agenda, much to the chagrin of the chairwoman, and Prince William County continued to remain a sanctuary!


The Lobby Day countdown begins

VCDL's Lobby Day 2020 was now around the corner and grassroots activism across the state had set the stage for the upcoming fight against tyranny in the General Assembly.

I stood in complete awe at what had transpired since November and humbled at the immense trust that had been placed in VCDL, not only by Virginians, but Americans across the country, to lead that fight.


Last thought:  Did Virginia have to go through this?

Sadly, I believe we all had to go through this "purgatory" in order to wake up enough gun owners from their sound sleep to actually affect a powerful and lasting change in Virginia. 

The House, the Governor, the Lt. Governor, and the Attorney General positions are all up for grabs in 2021.  Personally, I can't wait for 2021 to get here! 

If we all hang together, the political retribution for the war on gun owners will be a marvel to behold!  Payback will be coming and the General Assembly will once more be reminded that gun control is a third-rail that is best not touched.

We dare not fail at this.


Upcoming parts in this series on VCDL's Lobby Day 2020
 
Part 2. Preparation: as the expected Lobby Day attendance skyrockets and VCDL's infrastructure is pushed to the limit, panicky gun-controllers attempt to minimize the rally or even get it cancelled altogether!
 
Part 3. The cage: more last minute deterrents created to slow down or stop Lobby Day.  Courts take a spineless position on violations of state law by the Governor
 
Part 4. Lobby Day 2020 arrives and the deterrents failed:  an eye-popping, 100% peaceful event, with a massive turnout of patriots determined to save the Commonwealth from tyranny
 
Part 5. Postscript: the positive effects of Lobby Day 2020 on the upcoming 2020 and 2021 elections, gun-control bills in the General Assembly, and the perception of gun owners in the press
 
Part 6. Lobby Day 2020 articles, blogs, photos, and videos: wall-to-wall coverage of that historic event!

[Nemo]

Part 2 of 6.

Nemo


https://mailchi.mp/9a91b852e874/va-alertvcdls-historic-lobby-day-2020-part-1-of-441980

VCDL Lobby Day 2020

This is Part 2 in a 6 part series documenting VCDL's Lobby Day 2020, which was held on January 20, 2020 in Richmond, Virginia.

You can read Part 1 by clicking here.  (See Post Directly Above)
 
Part 2. Preparation: as the expected Lobby Day attendance skyrockets and VCDL's infrastructure is pushed to the limit, panicky gun-controllers attempt to minimize the rally or even get it cancelled altogether!

VIRGINIA GUN OWNERS SHIFT GEARS AS OTHER STATES CLOSELY WATCH WHAT'S TRANSPIRING HERE

As the Second Amendment Sanctuary movement, which had brought out over 105,000 gun owners over a period of only six weeks, started to die down (the state was pretty much solid green by the end of December), VCDL's Lobby Day became the focus for gun owners across the state - and - across the nation!

Most Virginia gun-owners realized that just because they lived in a newly-minted sanctuary locality, they were not safe from the crazy gun-control laws that were going to be headed their way from Richmond.  Those in other states realized that Virginia, long a bastion of liberty and strong gun-rights, was the canary-in-the-coal-mine for the rest of the country.

Gun owners were filled with a resolve to send an unmistakeable message to the General Assembly and VCDL's Lobby Day became the rally point.


LOBBY DAY PREPARATIONS STARTED A HALF YEAR EARLIER ASSUMING "BUSINESS AS USUAL"

VCDL started to get ready for Lobby Day in late July of 2019, working through the red tape that was required to hold the rally on the Capitol steps at 11 am on January 20, 2020.  We were figuring on our typical 600 to 1,000 people and were worried about the underpowered PA system that would be provided by the State.  We had to use their PA system, even though we owned a far superior one.

We were looking to book our usual 3 buses: one for Tidewater, one for Northern Virginia, and one for Roanoke/Lynchburg.

Little did we know a giant firestorm would be headed our way in a mere six months.  Nor had we any hint of all the attempts that would be made to minimize, sabotage, or to outright stop, Lobby Day. 

-

In early November, 2019 everything changed and by the end of December it was clear that our current planning was going to be woefully inadequate.

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THE MAGNITUDE OF THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE HEADED TO LOBBY DAY BECOMES APPARENT

Emails and social media, extremely active since November, really took off in as we approached the end of December. 

We were hearing from groups all across the state, and even across the country, organizing to come - gun clubs, shooting ranges, political organizations, social clubs, etc. 

VCDL began to book more buses, and then more, and then more again.  In the end, instead of 3 buses, VCDL had 44 and there were at least another 50 that were booked by individuals and various organizations in Virginia.  And there were more buses coming from out of state!

Texas had 7 buses coming.  There was a bus booked by the Connecticut Citizens Defense League headed our way.  More buses from Florida.  People were coming from as far away as California, Nevada, and Washington State, even some from Alaska!  And gun owners from states with much less freedom that we enjoy here were coming to support us (how humbling is that?): Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland.  The list where people were coming from pretty much covered the entire country, except Hawaii! 

What, no "aloha" for Virginia, Hawaiian gun owners? ;-)

In late December we were thinking that perhaps 30,000 people might be attending.  Soon that grew to 50,000 and even as many as 120,000 was thought to be possible.

Now VCDL found itself in a different world for purposes of planning.  Suddenly we needed to consider:

    renting port-a-potties (we started with 15 and ended up renting 65, but could have used some additional ones at the remote parking location)
    having places for people to park
    renting shuttle buses to run back and forth to remote parking (we booked 4 shuttles and that wasn't enough)
    somehow getting permission to have a real PA system
    arranging for trash to be collected in VCDL-provided trash bags and taken to the trash bins
    having a drone to photograph the crowd from high above
    two-way radios and body cams for Lobby Team Leaders and VCDL Leadership and
    where, oh where, do you put 50,000 or 120,000 people?

Our small, mostly volunteer organization, had to pull all that together in just three weeks!


VCDL STEPS UP ITS GAME

VCDL Board of Directors members Pat Webb and Bruce Jackson kicked into high gear.  I was so overwhelmed with an explosion of emails (I fell behind by 10,000 emails in just a few days), press interviews, and my own part of the planning for the event, that Pat and Bruce had to handle the flood of phone calls and the various emails that I forwarded to them.  (The VCDL phone lines were pretty much ringing continuously.)

Pat was also arranging to get the port-a-potties, paying VCDL's bills, interfacing with VCDL's Executive members (many of whom had also kicked into high gear, too), helping me lobby, working on getting a better PA system option, AND running her gun store!

Bruce, who also does VCDL fulfillment, was shipping up to a hundred packages a day AND working his regular day job!



Executive  members Tess Ailshire and Leyla Myers were coordinating the buses and putting out fires as they popped up.  They were inundated, but kept going like Energizer bunnies.

Executive member Ken Van Wyk was organizing the lobbying team leaders and the packets they would be delivering to legislators.

Executive member Matt Gottshalk was arranging to make videos documenting Lobby Day and looking at ways that audio of the rally could be streamed so attendees in remote locations could hear the rally's speakers (that didn't pan out, unfortunately, due to the shear magnitude of the crowd size overwhelming any streaming capabilities we might use).

Our membership director, Sandy Ferris, was overwhelmed as membership soared - our membership TRIPLED in six-weeks!  She went from working on membership applications part-time to doing so full-time.

Oh, and then there was social media!  The influx of information on our Facebook page, moderated by EMs Ed Levine and Joanna Smith, was mind-boggling.  Thousands of posts in a single day and up to a half-million views on one of the posts!  I don't know how Ed and Joanna kept up, but they did.  On top of that, Ed was involved in fund raising efforts!

EM Brendon Mooney was kept busy moderating Reddit and also working on fundraising ventures.

EM John Pierce got VCDL's Legislative Tracking System for 2020 up and running and helped me with legislation.

Vice-president Jim Snyder picked up some of the load by handling many of the non-legislative VA-ALERTs that needed to get out in a timely manner.

All that hard work paid off.  Lobby Day came off almost without a hitch.  It was both exhilarating and exhausting for everyone involved.  I equated it to trying to drink out of 5 fire hydrants at one time! 

All the VCDL members who worked their rear ends off to make Lobby Day 2020 happen, such as those who worked the VCDL table at the remote parking area or served on one of the VCDL lobby teams in the General Assembly Building, deserve our debt of gratitude for a job unbelievably well done!


THE GUN-GRABBERS TRY TO DERAIL, OR AT LEAST WEAKEN, LOBBY DAY

The gun-control crowd looked at the massive Second Amendment Sanctuary movement in November and December, along with the explosion of interest in Lobby Day, as a threat to getting their gun-control nightmare, uh, dreams, fulfilled.

They knew there was no way they could match the projected crowd size at the VCDL Lobby Day.  They would be extremely lucky to get a few hundred people to show up, much less tens of thousands.  So they had to come up with ways to discourage gun owner attendance and minimize the rally size.

They had already tried pooh-poohing sanctuaries, attacking VCDL in the press, threatening to bring out the National Guard to enforce gun laws, threatening localities with cutting their funding from the General Assembly if they became sanctuaries, and saying that guns would no longer be legal at the Capitol and General Assembly buildings.

One of the key attempts to scale back Lobby Day and to disincentivize attendance at local sanctuary meetings was when Senator Saslaw announced that he would change SB 16 to allow people to keep any "assault weapons" they already had, as long as those guns were registered with the state.  Saslaw's hope was that would placate gun owners and they would go back to sleep.

Luckily, gun owners not only didn't fall for Saslaw's charade and go back to sleep.  They only grew more determined to fight back against a government that seemed hell-bent on shredding the Constitution.  Law Enforcement Today even reported that police officers were looking to join newly-formed local militias to fight back against unconstitutional laws!  VCDL's membership meetings had become standing room only affairs.

 
RUMOR MILLS AND CONSPIRACY THEORISTS WANTED TO GET IN THE ACT, TOO
 
There was suddenly chatter on the web, and then in the media, of White Supremacists, Antifa, insurrectionists, anarchists, NAZIs, and other such groups attending the rally to turn it into Charlottesville 2.0.

Rumors were going around that guns would be banned in the City of Richmond and that the government was planning a violent confrontation with gun owners to discredit the Second Amendment movement.  Doom-and-gloom predictions abounded.  Enough to make many reconsider going to Lobby Day out of concern for their personal safety. 

While some were certainly deterred, plenty were unfazed and determined to stand up to a government gone wild.


UPCOMING PARTS IN THIS SERIES ON VCDL'S LOBBY DAY 2020
 
Part 3. The cage: more last minute deterrents created to slow down or stop Lobby Day.  Courts take a spineless position on violations of state law by the Governor
 
Part 4. Lobby Day 2020 arrives and the deterrents failed:  an eye-popping, 100% peaceful event, with a massive turnout of patriots determined to save the Commonwealth from tyranny.  Also a birds-eye view: select video from the VCDL president's body camera
 
Part 5. Postscript: the positive effects of Lobby Day 2020 on the upcoming 2020 and 2021 elections, gun-control bills in the General Assembly, and the perception of gun owners in the press
 
Part 6. Lobby Day 2020 articles, photos, videos, and gun-owner comments: wall-to-wall coverage of that historic event!

[Nemo]

Part 3 of 6.

Nemo


https://mailchi.mp/de536d5c5f1d/va-alertvcdls-historic-lobby-day-2020-part-1-of-442012

VCDL Lobby Day 2020

This is Part 3 in a 6 part series documenting VCDL's Lobby Day 2020, which was held on January 20, 2020 in Richmond, Virginia.

You can read the previous parts by clicking on the part number:

Part 1

Part 2
 
 
Part 3. The cage: more last minute deterrents created to slow down or stop Lobby Day.  Courts take a spineless position on violations of state law by the Governor.
 
PANIC AND TREACHERY IN THE DEMOCRAT LEADERSHIP
 
The Northam administration and others in the Democrat leadership were clearly in panic mode.  How could they minimize VCDL's Lobby Day, which resembles a snowball rolling down a mountain, continuing to gain speed, mass, and size as it went? 

The last thing the Democrats wanted was a massive show of opposition to their gun-control agenda, which was a key part of their legislative package aimed at repaying Michael Bloomberg for his huge political donations. 

The upcoming VCDL Lobby Day was receiving an incredible amount of coverage in both local and national media.  The media had been watching the Second Amendment Sanctuary movement as it covered Virginia like a tidal wave,  with their interest increasing as the map of Virginia turned more and more green. That intense coverage helped the movement jump Virginia's borders and take root in other states as well.  But with word of Lobby Day and an associated massive gun-rights rally (usually incorrectly referred to as a "protest" by the media), the media changed its focus to the upcoming January 20th event.  Coverage was everywhere you looked.

What to do?  What to do?

The Democrats, with help from a media wanting to see a Charlottesville 2.0 for the sensationalism of it, had cards to play:

1. Make the event seem dangerous, a Charlottesville 2.0, with violence threatening to erupt at any time from White Supremacists, Antifa, NAZIs, anarchists, and other such groups attending

In this effort, Democrat gun-controllers had help from even some in the gun community who were busy spinning conspiracy theories about how there was a set up being planned to cause mayhem and chaos on Lobby Day in an effort to discredit VCDL and harm the image of gun owners. 

I can't count the number of emails I received from concerned gun-owners with a link to the same article saying Lobby Day is being turned into a trap, similar to how American Indians would stampede buffalo off a cliff. 

Then there were rumors, probably created by some kid in his mom's basement, that the buses, and even the cars, headed to Lobby Day, would be stopped by police and searched for guns, which would be confiscated if found and the owner arrested.  There was even a rumor that guns would be banned in the entire City of Richmond during the event.

Not to be left out of the rumor mill, MS-13 gang members were supposedly going to be there, too.  Oh, and one email with a link to a youtube video had this headline screaming: UN TAKEOVER OF THE UNITED STATES!! FLASH POINT FOR CONFISCATION IN VIRGINIA HAPPENING NOW!

In a press conference six days before Lobby Day, Northam singled out VCDL to say that if our event wasn't peaceful (as it always has been in the past), it would dishonor Virginia.  It sure sounded like Northam was hoping something bad would happen so he could blame VCDL for it.  When the event turned out to be peaceful, Northam predictably took credit for the lack of violence.  Sort of like a local news meteorologist taking credit for beautiful days.

Rumors abounded of Antifa showing up in 7 buses, which soon ballooned to 50 buses.  Then a new rumor said that the Richmond Antifa would be marching IN SUPPORT of Lobby Day, followed by another rumor that the marching report was a ruse and that Antifa was really planning violence.

Other rumors said White Nationalists bearing NAZI flags would be present and itching for a fight with Antifa a la Charlottesville.

You needed a scorecard to keep up with the crazy rumors and conspiracy theories flying in all directions.

The media, loving the sensational angle of a gun-rights rally becoming a violent, hate-filled melee, were pumping up the headlines.  Story after story talked about "White Nationalists", "threats of violence", "Another  potential Charlottesville event", etc.  Having a chance to paint gun owners as a bunch of racist hate-mongers was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. 

Here is a video collage of the media's fear mongering on Lobby Day and their attempt to smear VCDL.  In the end, the massive amount of publicity was a two-edged sword that showed the world that gun owners are good, peaceful, and patriotic people that just want their rights left alone.  Truth be known, gun owners were just being themselves.

(Can we absolutely and definitively say that there was no one there planning to do harm?  No.  There may have been.  But with 50,000 or so armed good guys, such plans may have been reconsidered.)

2. Take away the ability of gun owners to protect themselves in the General Assembly and Capitol buildings

Those of us who carry a firearm for self-defense realize that a gun left at home is useless and we also realize that public mass-shootings almost always happen in gun-free zones.  So, banning guns at the General Assembly and Capitol buildings would be a strong disincentive to gun owners wanting to attend Lobby Day.  And that's exactly what the Democrat leadership in the House and Senate did.  As frosting on the cake, the Governor declared a state of emergency and banned guns on the Capitol grounds outside of the buildings as well.  (See below for more information on VCDL's and GOA's lawsuit on the Governor's gun ban.)

That ban was so extreme that even police who were not actually assigned to work security at Lobby Day were not allowed to be armed!  The two sheriffs who spoke at the rally, Sheriff Danny Diggs and Sheriff Scott Jenkins, were unarmed as they did so. 

The sky, apparently, was getting ready to fall in Richmond on January 20.  Northam was going to miss it, though, as he conveniently had plans to be in another state that day.

What was funny is that the Democrats, not wanting to take responsibility for their cowardice and treachery, said it was the Capitol Police that wanted the General Assembly gun-ban.  Unfortunately for the Democrats, the Capitol Police publicly denied it (scroll down to paragraph 7) and gun owners never believed it for a moment.

3. Fence in a large part of the Capitol grounds where the Lobby Day speakers would be and make it an extreme gun-free zone.  Toilets?  Not allowed either.

Suddenly liking the idea of walls keeping people out, and with the added benefit of making the Capitol look like East Berlin, Northam put fences around the west side of the Capitol grounds, separating the armed citizens outside the fence, from the unarmed citizens inside the fence. 

No toilets were allowed in the fenced in area, either. 

Hmmm - no guns, no toilets, fenced-in cage with one way in and one way out.  The Democrats really, really wanted to discourage people from surrounding the stage where the speakers would be.  They wanted photos to show the speakers talking to themselves and not to a huge, motivated crowd. 

To help achieve the goal of minimizing the photographic impact, they also limited the number of people who could enter the cage to 6,000 and blocked the crowd from standing on the east side of the Capitol grounds.

4. Push local garages to close and disallow street parking nearby so parking would be hard to find

If you can't find a place to park, it is going to be difficult to make it to Lobby Day.  Local garages were asked to shutdown and street parking was restricted.  We did have a large remote parking area with shuttle buses, but even that parking lot was not capable of being filled to capacity, as half of it was reserved for another event.

5. Make no accommodations for those with handicaps to get access to the Capitol, the General Assembly, or the cage

The Capitol Police and the Virginia Department of General Services advised VCDL that there would be NO special accommodations for handicap access to the Capitol area on Lobby Day.  Nor was there any special parking areas for the handicapped.  There was a handicap drop-off point about four blocks away from the Capitol, with an uphill return trek when Lobby Day was over.

Many people contacted me, frustrated that they couldn't attend due to the Commonwealth ignoring the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations.  I heard that at least one has filed an ADA complaint.  I hope they win big!

6. Get rid of the biggest lightning-rod as fast as possible: SB 16, the semi-automatic gun ban

Even the NRA got into the act of discouraging attendance at VCDL's Lobby Day.  They claimed that VCDL's Lobby Day was going to be "too late" to stop gun-control bills being heard on January 13th, so they held their version of Lobby Day a week earlier. 

That was odd because 1) only some Senate gun bills and no House gun bills were going to be heard that day and 2) there is a long process before bills become law - a week that early in the session wasn't going to be significant.  But, VCDL got behind the NRA Lobby Day anyway and pushed for our members to attend it, too.  It was not to the advantage of gun owners that any such thing be attended in small numbers.  (Unfortunately, the NRA did not reciprocate by asking their members to attend VCDL's Lobby Day.) 

Several thousand gun owners filled the General Assembly Building on January 13th, with some wearing NRA shirts given out at the event, but pretty much everyone was sporting a Guns SAVE Lives sticker. 

To get rid of a political hot potato, SB 16 was withdrawn by its patron, Senator Dick Saslaw, as the first order of business in a committee hearing that day, though it wasn't even on the agenda for consideration.  Other gun-control bills moved forward, some having been toned down.

 
VCDL AND GOA FILE A LAWSUIT TO FIGHT BACK ON THE CAPITOL GROUNDS GUN-FREE ZONE EDICT

Just one week before Lobby Day, the Governor declared a phony state of emergency and banned firearms on the Capitol grounds, effective Friday through Tuesday.  He had clearly overstepped his authority, so VCDL and GOA filed a lawsuit to get an emergency stay on that ban.

A state judge in Richmond denied VCDL's request for an emergency stay and wasted precious time in announcing the ruling.  Note: this was not an actual ruling on the merits of the lawsuit, just on the request for a stay.  With the clock ticking, VCDL appealed the stay request to the Virginia Supreme Court the weekend of Lobby Day.  The Virginia Supreme Court punted by claiming that the lower court in Richmond had provided insufficient information about the ruling for the Supreme Court to make a determination if the lower court erred or not.

My reading was that both courts did not want to issue a stay for fear that something might happen on Lobby Day and they didn't want to be blamed for it.

The actual lawsuit against the Governor is still pending.  We refuse to back down.


THE CLOCK STRIKES MIDNIGHT

The night before Lobby Day, gun owners and reporters flooded the large restaurant where VCDL was having its pre-Lobby Day dinner.  The place was packed!  I was doing almost non-stop interviews with the press.

One unexpected surprise was that Kenneth Hall, who recorded the VCDL Fight Song for us, had flown in from Nebraska to attend the dinner and Lobby Day!  Ken had sent me an email telling me he had gotten off work, bought an airplane ticket, booked a car and a hotel room, and would be there on Sunday.  Unfortunately, his email was buried with 25,000 other emails that arrived in January that I simply couldn't read at that time.  Ken's a great patriot and it was a pleasure to meet him in person.

At the conclusion of the dinner, VCDL leadership headed to our hotel rooms in Richmond so we would be ready bright and early on Monday morning, January 20, 2020.
 
 
FINAL THOUGHTS FOR PART 3:  GUN CONTROLLERS HAVE NO SHAME AND EMBRACE CORRUPTION.  EXCELLENT RESPONSE ON WHY WE WERE AT LOBBY DAY
 
Gun controllers know how to play games.  For example, when the NRA had their lobby day on January 13, a hearing room was divided in two. One side for gun owners and the other side for the gun controllers.  The Democrat leadership and the gun-control groups wanted it to look like there were as many people on their side as there were gun owners on our side.  One problem:  while the gun-owner side was full with a few thousand standing outside the doors waiting to get a seat, the gun-control side of the room was mostly empty!  Rather than let gun owners in the front of the line take the open seats, the Capitol and State Police were ordered by Democrat leadership to go find gun-controllers in line and escort them into the room to take those seats!

Yes, gun controllers are that petty, corrupt, and fake.  They also made the police look extremely bad, as gun owners who were waiting their turn in a long line saw the police picking sides by escorting the red-shirted gun controllers from the back of the line into the meeting room.

I witnessed the above with my own eyes and it was also documented here.  Seeing the gun grabbers in action always makes me so proud and appreciative of the wonderful people on our side.

-

As was mentioned above, many people forwarded an item on Lobby Day being a trap, similar to how the American Indians would stampede a herd of buffalo off a cliff.  That no matter what we did on Lobby Day, it was a lost cause and many people could be hurt or worse. 

I saw the fantastic answer that Board member Bruce Jackson sent one of the forwarders and I wanted to share it here:

Whether my presence results in my voice being heard or not, I am taking the chance. I am going because freedom is worth it.

Whether my involvement results in my voice being heard or not, I am taking the chance.  I am going to do everything within my power to stop this insanity before it begins, because freedom is worth it.

Whether my exposure results in my voice being heard or not, I am taking the chance.  I am going.  If I do not come home, as some of the naysayers suggest, so be it, because freedom is worth it.

And so it is...


UPCOMING PARTS IN THIS SERIES ON VCDL'S LOBBY DAY 2020
 
Part 4. Lobby Day 2020 arrives and the deterrents failed:  an eye-popping, 100% peaceful event, with a massive turnout of patriots determined to save the Commonwealth from tyranny.  Also a birds-eye view: select video from the VCDL president's body camera
 
Part 5. Postscript: the positive effects of Lobby Day 2020 on the upcoming 2020 and 2021 elections, gun-control bills in the General Assembly, and the perception of gun owners in the press
 
Part 6. Lobby Day 2020 articles, photos, videos, and gun-owner comments: wall-to-wall coverage of that historic event!

[Nemo]

Video referenced above, 2nd to last paragraph of part 1.

First is source page, second is direct link to report.

Nemo



https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2020/01/20/fake-news-cnn-msnbc-spread-fear-white-nationalists-causing-violence


https://www.mrctv.org/embed/546505

[Nemo]

Part 4.  Read it on the enclosed link.  Best place to have the included links working and most make a good additional info.

Nemo

https://mailchi.mp/ef82872713b1/va-alertvcdls-historic-lobby-day-2020-part-1-of-442043

VCDL Lobby Day 2020

This is Part 4 in a 6 part series documenting VCDL's Lobby Day 2020, which was held on January 20, 2020 in Richmond, Virginia.

You can read the previous parts by clicking on the part number:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4. Lobby Day 2020 arrives and the deterrents failed:  an eye-popping, 100% peaceful event, with a massive turnout of patriots determined to save the Commonwealth from tyranny.  Also a birds-eye view: select video from the VCDL president's body camera

FINAL MOMENTS BEFORE THE EVENT

After leaving the packed pre-Lobby Day dinner that Sunday night, I headed to my hotel in Richmond.  As I approached downtown, I could see gun owners walking around mostly in groups.  Some were checking out the "cage", Northam's version of the Berlin wall.

At my hotel, it seemed like almost everyone I saw there was a gun owner.  Some I recognized, and others I didn't.  Talking to people and listening to conversations, it was clear there was a strong contingent of those who had come long distances to be part of the event.

Walking out to where the valet had parked my car, I passed a military-looking vehicle parked in an alleyway.  It was Alex Jones of InfoWars and his team.  They wold be one of many who would cover the event the next day.

As I was getting ready to go to sleep, the question on my mind was whether all the days and weeks of fear mongering by Northam, the news media, and various others, about the event being potentially dangerous, would mean a low turnout?  Would the gun controllers and the alarmists get what they wanted - a diminished Lobby Day they could easily write off?

Or was this going to be a historic event with a long reaching impact?

In a few hours, those questions would be answered, one way or the other.


LOBBY DAY!

The early morning of Monday, January 20, 2020 was clear and the day would prove to be beautiful, but very cold.

My morning was filled mostly with press interviews.  Meanwhile, buses from across the state and across the country had been arriving since well before 8 am.  Arriving buses were parked on streets that were blocked off for that purpose and the passengers had to walk a few blocks to get to the Capitol.

Many of the gun owners coming by private vehicles, parked at the Flying Squirrels baseball team's parking lot, where they were greeted by VCDL volunteers and put on shuttle buses.  The four shuttle buses VCDL leased were having a hard time keeping up with all the people arriving.  Some of the gun owners decided to walk the mile or so to the Capitol rather than wait for the shuttle service.

Over 20 lobbying teams were assembled and dispatched, unarmed, into the General Assembly Building to lobby for all of us.  Bearing "Guns SAVE Lives" stickers and VCDL's Gun Bill Analysis document to give to the various legislators each team had been assigned to cover, the teams worked through the building over the next two and a half hours.

Outside, tens-of-thousands of well-armed gun-owners filled streets around the Capitol, which had been closed to traffic for that purpose.

Gun owners bearing patriotic signs and posters were everywhere!

Another six thousand or so unarmed individuals went through security screening to enter the "cage," putting them near the podium where the speakers would be.  (The Governor's "cage" was intentionally sized to minimize the number of people that could be inside it: six thousand was the limit that had been set.)

Thanks so much to those in the "cage" for doing what I know wasn't an easy decision for any of them.  But it paid off.  Photos of the rally taken from a distance showing the masses of people inside and outside the cage were stunning.

Looking at aerial photographs of the entire crowd, it's been estimated there were over 50,000 people there.  The estimate from the Capitol Police was 22,000, which is nothing to sneeze at, but is clearly low.  Their estimate probably didn't include all the nearby streets that weren't directly around the Capitol, but were packed with people from wall to wall.

Lobby Day turned out to be a completely peaceful event with a massive turnout of friendly, but determined patriots, from all walks of American life, who wanted their message of "no more gun control" to be heard.

In the end, Northam and the other Democrat gun-controllers had failed to derail Lobby Day.  All their fear mongering, along with the roadblocks they tried to put up because of their hatred and disdain for gun owners, were for naught.

Our voices were heard and will continue to be heard at the polls and in the General Assembly for a long time to come.

And, as a final reminder of who we are (hats off to those who did this), the streets and Capitol grounds were cleaner after we left than they were before we arrived!  In fact, local media noticed that one could tell exactly where the cordoned area ended based on the cleanliness of the streets!  In my body cam video, below, you will see one officer noting in amazement just how clean we had left Capitol Square (near the 42:00 minute mark).  The police were accustomed to other groups leaving their trash everywhere for someone else to clean up.

We are nothing like those other groups.

Thanks to all of our Lobby Day speakers for doing such a great job!  In order of appearance:

    Senator Amanda Chase
    Delegate Nick Freitas
    Delegate John McGuire
    Antonia Okafor, founder "Empowered 2A"
    Cam Edwards, editor of BearingArms.com, host Cam & Co.
    Dick Heller, of DC vs Heller
    Sheriff Scott Jenkins (Culpeper County)
    Sheriff Danny Diggs (York County)
    EM Brendon Mooney
    Jan Morgan, political analyst at Fox Business, range owners, and rep. for "2A Women"
    Anthony Myers, 2A activist from Suffolk
    Jeff Katz, Richmond talk-radio personality on WRVA
    Erich Pratt, Gun Owners of America
    Keynote: Stephen Williford, hero from Sutherland, Texas who stopped a mass public-shooting in a church in 2017 using his AR-15


OFFICIAL LOBBY DAY VIDEO

Thanks to EM Matt Gottshalk and his team for putting together fantastic video coverage of Lobby Day 2020!

Matt said that all day long people, seeing that he was with VCDL, approached and thanked him for all VCDL does.

Click here to watch the official VCDL Lobby Day video.


SELECT VIDEO FROM THE VCDL PRESIDENT'S BODY CAM

I was wearing a body camera on Lobby Day.  I put together an edited video showing a birds-eye view of that event from my vantage point, including some peaks behind-the-scenes.  (In the very first part of the video Jim Snyder used my body cam to film a press interview I was doing outside the Commonwealth hotel.  That small segment is in black-and-white and everything else is in color.)

I was pleased with the quality of the video - it was the first time I had used that camera and I didn't know what to expect.

Click here (youtube) or here (vimeo) to watch the body cam video.

-
 
UPCOMING PARTS IN THIS SERIES ON VCDL'S LOBBY DAY 2020
 
Part 5. Postscript: the positive effects of Lobby Day 2020 on the upcoming 2020 and 2021 elections, gun-control bills in the General Assembly, and the perception of gun owners in the press

Part 6. Lobby Day 2020 news articles, photos, videos, and gun-owner comments: wall-to-wall coverage of that historic event!

[Nemo]

Part 5, AAR, Lobby Day

Nemo

VCDL Lobby Day 2020

This is Part 5 in a 6 part series documenting VCDL's Lobby Day 2020, which was held on January 20, 2020 in Richmond, Virginia.

You can read the previous parts by clicking on the part number:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4
 
Part 5. Postscript: the positive effects of Lobby Day 2020 on the upcoming 2020 and 2021 elections, gun-control bills in the General Assembly, and the perception of gun owners in the press

HONEYMOON?  WHAT HONEYMOON?

As soon as the Democrats won control of the House and Senate, they immediately began saber rattling at Virginia's gun owners.  The Democrats pre-filed a gun-confiscation bill and started talking about passing Red Flag, Universal Background Check, and One Handgun a Month laws.  They also wanted local governments to be able to infringe on gun owners. 

The Democrat's gun-control agenda was aimed at peaceful gun owners and not criminals.

Voters in Virginia were taken by surprise, as the local Democrat candidates for the General Assembly had not said a word about any of that while campaigning.  Nor was anything said about gun control being a top priority. 

The saber rattling started a massive Second Amendment Sanctuary movement across the Commonwealth.  Over 105,000 angry gun-owners showed up en mass at their local government meetings starting in early to mid November and going through December and into January!  During that time 147 counties, cities, and towns became sanctuaries!  That is over 96% of the state telling the new General Assembly to stay away from gun control.

Only a small handful of citizens wanting all that gun control bothered to show up at any of the local government sanctuary meetings, while thousand of gun owners did show up.  That's because most voters did not vote to support gun control.  Michael Bloomberg is the puppet master in the gun control push.  He spent millions of dollars to purchased the loyalty of the Democrat leadership and succeeded.

Normally a newly elected General Assembly gets a "honeymoon" period, as Virginians give the legislators some initial breathing room to do their job.

Not this time.  The General Assembly's honeymoon was over in a few days, long before they were sworn in or had a chance to vote on anything, Resistance to their gun-control agenda exploded across the state.  I have never seen anything like it.

 
LOBBY DAY 2020'S POSITIVE EFFECTS ON UPCOMING ELECTIONS

While there is no way to predict the final effects on future elections, the Second Amendment Sanctuary movement and Lobby Day 2020 motivated a lot of gun owners to register to vote for the first time.  It also motivated those who were registered, but had not voted in a while.  And gun owners, who had never done so before, became active in local and state politics.  In essence a silent majority had finally awoken from a deep, dangerous sleep.

In a period of six weeks, VCDL's membership tripled and VA-ALERT went from 29,000 subscribers to 51,000!  The VCDL-PAC was also receiving more donations than usual and they were larger donations overall.  A well-funded VCDL-PAC in 2021 will greatly help get pro-gun candidates elected.

Through Lobby Day and the sanctuary movement, gun owners were reminded of the power they have politically when they all stand together as a single team.

How far the backlash will be against the party of gun control (Democrat) in the upcoming federal elections, we will see.  Trump is probably going to find a much stronger base in Virginia and Senator Warner might find himself swimming up stream.


LOBBY DAY MADE A STRONG, POSITIVE IMPRESSION IN THE MEDIA

The coverage of VCDL's Lobby Day 2020 was more intense than any the organization had in a very long time.  The closest was the "Bloomberg Gun Giveaway" in 2007, which had been covered by most of the main stream media nationally.

The Lobby Day coverage changed over time and expanded to be both national, and even international, as Lobby Day approached. 

The last few weeks before Lobby Day, the media was mostly focused on the supposed attendance by white supremacists, ANTIFA, and the like.  Basically, the media was saying "the sky would be falling" in Richmond on January 20, with violence expected. 

Thanks to that intensity in the coverage, all eyes were on Richmond, as the country watched with bated breath.

The media was then forced to show the country, and the world, the impossible (according to the media script on guns): over 50,000 well-armed citizens peacefully assembled for Lobby Day and the associated rally.  No bloodshed and no violence.  One lone arrest: a woman for wearing a mask who refused to take it off when the police asked her to do so.  Local media marveled at the fact that the areas where the crowds were kept were cleaner after the event than before the event!

I was approached by many people in the General Assembly for days afterwards, congratulating VCDL on the success of that historic rally.  Gun controllers, meanwhile, had a lot of egg on their face for their unfounded fear-mongering.

 
LOBBY DAY 2020'S POSITIVE EFFECTS ON THE GUN CONTROL BILLS INTRODUCED IN 2020

Over half of the gun-control bills introduced in 2020 were stopped.  A total of 16 gun-control laws were passed, varying in importance.  Almost all of those laws were watered down from their original form, some significantly.  Lobby Day and the powerful Second Amendment Sanctuary movement made that possible, as the Democrats had the votes to do whatever they wanted.

That said, in spite of the fact that many of the gun-control bills were watered down, make no mistake about it, gun owners in Virginia LOST rights at the hands of the party of gun control.  I hope gun owners will remember who voted for your rights and who voted to make you a criminal in upcoming elections.

A recap of the gun-control laws that passed and the gun-control bills that were defeated can be seen by clicking here.

 
UPCOMING AND FINAL PART IN THIS SERIES ON VCDL'S LOBBY DAY 2020
 
Part 6. Lobby Day 2020 news articles, photos, videos, and gun-owner comments: wall-to-wall coverage of that historic event!