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GQ Compares Virginia Gun Rights Protesters To Nazis: ‘Wasn’t Exactly Peaceful’

   DailyWire.com
A man walks next to a logo of Nazi swastika during an anti-fascist rally outside the Court of Appeal during the testify of former MP and leader of Golden Dawn party Nikolaos Michaloliakos, on November 6, 2019, in Athens. - The 61-year-old Holocaust denier is one of nearly 70 defendants facing sentences of five to 20 years in prison. The main charge against them is participation in a criminal organisation, in addition to a host of other indictments related to murder and assault.
(Photo by Angelos Tzortzinis / AFP) (Photo by ANGELOS TZORTZINIS/AFP via Getty Images)

Despite the media’s constant drumming that the pro-gun rights protest in Richmond, Virginia on Monday was secretly a white nationalist rally, the day unfolded without a shot fired and all ended peacefully.

But Talia Lavin of GQ feels differently. In a lengthy op-ed spanning nearly 2,000 words, Lavin compares the protesters to Nazis – as illustrated by the head photo being a swastika formed from assault rifles – while arguing the protests were anything but peaceful.

According to Lavin, the protesters essentially held the city at gunpoint, forcing its residents into silence as they flagrantly marched through the streets with vast arrays of weaponry. She also highlights the fact that the FBI arrested members of a neo-Nazi group several days before the event who planned to open fire on the crowd with the intent of starting a race war.

“Just outside the legions of police barricades, [thousands] of people roamed the streets of Richmond bearing a bristling mass of rifles, from AR-15s to massive Barrett sniper rifles,” writes Lavin. “Some wore skull masks; others waved Confederate flags. Members of hate groups like the League of the South and the American Guard, as well as the Proud Boys, mingled openly; some of the latter were wearing patches that said ‘RWDS’—an acronym for ‘Right-Wing Death Squad.'”

As reported by The Daily Wire’s Ryan Saavedra, people from all walks of life showed up to the protest in favor of gun rights, including blacks and LGBTQ people. It was hardly the gathering of angry white men that the media and Lavin portrays:

The media tried to claim that the event was going to be attended by angry white conservative men and that violence was likely to break out, neither of which materialized.

Members of the LGBT community, Democrats, and gay rights supporters attended the event, declaring that “Gun Rights Are Gay Rights.”

The black community showed up in large numbers in support gun rights, a fact that went widely under-reported by the media.

One black Second Amendment supporter told Breitbart News: “I do not support in any way, shape, or form Governor Northam’s and the Democrats’ gun control.

Other videos on social media showed black Americans expressing anger at the media for lying about the event and for hoping that bad things would have happened at the rally so they could push an agenda.

In other words, the day brought with it a vast array of people. Though present were extremists brandishing obnoxious (sometimes violent) signs as well as individuals clumsily packing their firearms, it reeks of intellectual dishonesty to paint these pockets as indicative of the whole who showed up to protest on Monday. As for those neo-nazis that the FBI arrested, the group already had a history of extremist activity with the “desire to hasten the collapse of society as we know it” and had no intention of using violence to advocate for gun rights. They were terrorists using the protest as a vehicle to enact their agenda. Even without the threat of such violence, however, Lavin argues that the protest crippled the city in fear.

“On Monday, itself the sea of armed men kept the city in a kind of artificial stillness—not safety but fear,” she writes. “There is a difference between peace that consists of calm and security, and the false peace of being held under threat. One may be silent when held at gunpoint, but it is not the silence of contentment; it is the silence of mortal terror.”

“Monday was a day of a clenched fist raised in menace; rather than be lulled by the temporary absence of bloodshed, Americans would do better to be poised for the inevitable falling of the blow,” she concluded.

Read the full article here.

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