Martin Luther King was a great leader and peace activist. Martin Luther King was killed in Memphis as he stood for civil rights and unions. He was killed by a racist with a gun. Martin Luther King will be honored by many this coming Monday but it seems that many more will dishonor his memory with the gun nuts showing up to rally against common sense gun legislation. These people will rah rah the NRA zealots with anything but peace marches. The rally is concerning enough that the Governor has declared a state of emergency. www.nytimes.com/...
The head leader of the rally is a man named Philip Van Cleave. He is as Barney Fife would say, “ A nut”. I noticed in his bio that he was born in 1952 but I saw no mention of military service during Vietnam. ( Just another dangerous chickenhawk that promotes violence and weapons of war but not willing to serve where people actually shoot back).
The Guardian also has a write up on this event.
Van Cleave is a proponent of a strong interpretation of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, believing open access to guns guarantees that individual Americans have the right to defend themselves and, as he put it in 2004, "to take back your country should it ever become a totalitarian state."[2] Although some other gun rights groups (such as the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms)[2] have criticized the VCDL for having its members open carry en masse, Van Cleave has defended this practice, saying that it helps educate both citizens and the police about Virginia's gun laws.[3] He has also defended the VCDL's advocacy for passing concealed carry laws that allow college students to carry guns on campus if they have a permit, saying after the Virginia Tech shooting, "If just one of those adult students had been armed in that building, there would have been a much better chance that somebody would have stopped the madman."[4] In 2010, it was reported that he was pressuring Virginia lawmakers to legalize gun carrying and drinking among non-police officers as well as police officers, so long as they are not drunk while carrying the gun, arguing that "We're not allowed to drink, but they can. That's two classes of citizens."[5]
Van Cleave has been interviewed on 60-Minutes,[6] Nightline,[7] the Washington Post,[8] and a host of other places.
"It's clear that Van Cleave is in a league of his own when it comes to gun extremism. From giving guns to toddlers to arming those on the Terrorist Watch List, Van Cleave's radical views on guns are not only dangerous, they're so extreme that comedy shows seek him out to express his outrageous beliefs. His latest crusade to push 'Second Amendment Sanctuary' resolutions is just another scare tactic to cover for the devastating loss Republicans suffered in this year's elections after they've done absolutely nothing to address gun violence for years," said DPVA Press Secretary Grant Fox
Othere extremists will be in Virginia on MLK Holiday as well
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency ahead of the Jan. 20 pro-gun event at the state’s capitol in Richmond in response to threats of violence and reports that violent hate groups may attend. On Thursday, the FBI arrested neo-Nazis who had discussed opening fire at the event and who possessed an assault rifle and a cache of ammunition.
Although he does not plan to go to the event Monday, Bracken gave a nearly two-hour interview Friday about the rally to the web-based outlet Red Ice, which acts a megaphone for white nationalist and white supremacist rhetoric. Bracken claimed that the FBI arrested the neo-Nazis in order to fabricate a timeline of events that the agency could later use to smear people opposed to gun control laws. He also compared the FBI to the East German Stasi and attempted to downplay the threat the violent neo-Nazis posed to the event.
For those in Virginia, please stay safe and remember the words of MLK. Honor his legacy and hope for the best come Monday.
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