Thoughts after the rally
I attended the rally yesterday. It was good to see people out there for a single purpose. I do wish the turnout had been higher; it seems sad to me that gun owners cannot manage to mobilize to two ends -- to make certain every freedom-loving person in the state knows about these events, and to demonstrate even to non-gun-owners that our liberties in one area are no more important than our liberties in another, and we should be fighting for every single one of them.
I was disappointed to hear from John Bloom, Chairman of the Virginia Constitution Party, that when he asked to be included in the speakers' list, he was told it was going to be non-political, and then both Corey Stewart and EW Jackson were invited. I have no great love for the Constitution Party, but fair is fair. Frankly, I'm tired of hearing from politicians, and I don't believe they bring the strong message. I think others do.
Those who are not used to microphones didn't have a voice. We were seated just behind the first walkway - maybe 30-40 feet from the speakers' stand -- and could hear only the practiced speakers. Most of the speakers were just murmurs, despite all my efforts to ensure the volume was up as high as could be. Yet these are the people we don't hear from every day and whose stories often carry more weight.
There was some intolerance for those of us who are not Trump cheerleaders. When Corey Stewart voiced his fantasy of a "hugely popular president who will easily win reelection" and I scoffed, some bystanders looked at me with disgust and moved away. When EW Jackson insisted we need to "put prayer back in school" (it is there; ask anyone who hasn't studied for that test) and I yelled "NO", one would've thought I'd just pissed on the Vatican wall. And neither of those messages is gun-related; they're pure politics.
Ideally, I'd like to see families and groups of friends, openly armed or not, but with their messages, picnicking on the Capitol grounds once a month or so (and I wish I lived close enough to Richmond to organize these things). I think the *real* power is in showing our normalcy, not in listening to one another speak.
See my next post about picnic in Northern Virginia.