Once, a few years ago, we cats were in a store in Northern Virginia when we saw a fellow customer toddling around the aisles with a gun on his belt. We could not get out of that store fast enough.
We know the statistics: 100 Americans die from gun violence every day — 1,500 kids each year. The presence of a firearm in your house dramatically increases the chances that you'll be killed with it. Long story short, we don't want to be anywhere near a gun.
So the chances that we'd want to be in Richmond, Virginia, tomorrow? Don't make us laugh.
Monday is Martin Luther King Day, and the nutcases are coming out in force. Second Amendment enthusiasts are so alarmed that Virginians elected gun-control-supporting Democrats in November that they're pledging to show up at the state capitol to express their dismay. That normally wouldn't be a problem — except for all the promises of violence that poured in from neo-Nazi and militia groups.
Governor Ralph Northam isn't getting into the gory details publicly. But the threats have been bad enough to change the mind of the Republican state house minority leader, Todd Gilbert, who had been bleating earlier about Northam's declaration of a state of emergency. After a private briefing, Gilbert announced, "Any group that comes to Richmond to spread white supremacist garbage, or any other form of hate, violence or civil unrest isn’t welcome here." Well!
No firearms will be allowed within a certain perimeter at the capitol. But outside it — oy.
We're happy to be 500-plus miles away. We cats hope that no innocent people are hurt or killed. In the meantime, we HISS.
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