Gun nuts from all over the country crowded around the Virginia statehouse yesterday (on Martin Luther King Day) to protest laws that no one has proposed.  Their main objections that caused their fake outrage was that the new Democratic majority was going to…I kid you not…to “shut down the internet”, “have no-knock raids on gun owners”, and to “start confiscating everyone’s guns”.  This is in response to the state legislature’s consideration of improved background checks and limitations on the number of guns on can purchase in one month.  That’s real tyranny, right?  Generally, I find that those who parade around like this are either 1.  Criminals who can’t legally own a firearm, 2. Right wing racists who try to piss off normal people by co-opting holidays like MLK day, 3. Mentally unstable, and 4. Compensating for a physical deficiency.  Namely:

Most of said demonstrators yesterday were all dressed up in body armor, helmets, radio headsets, multiple firearms and vests that hold multiple high-capacity magazines.  Many claimed they were members of “militias”.  A news flash for these fine fellows – you’re not a member of a militia.  You are a member of an armed mob.  Militias come under federal, state and local authorities, and not just any group of idiots can dress up, and run around in the woods playing Army.  Here’s a really good explanation of the laws surrounding actual militias.

I’ve found these folks impossible to talk with about their gun obsession.  Their minds are so full on nonsense about the Second Amendment that they believe it was written to allow individual citizens to attack the government if they disagree with what their government is doing.  The Second Amendment was added for the opposite reason, which was to provide a structure for federal, state, and local governments to protect from insurrections and attacks from standing armies (like the British).  So much bullshit has been pumped into the public domain about guns that we have the result today of thousands of gun nuts protesting laws that are not proposed.  And most of the media let them get away with that.

Virginia governor Ralph Northam has declared a state of emergency in advance of a planned open carry rally in Richmond on Monday, Martin Luther King Day.  You’ll recall that the Dems took the statehouse and governor’s mansion in November, and are planning to enact common sense gun safety laws after finally ousting NRA shills who had previously controlled Virginia for years.  The response to this news by gun nuts was predictable – threaten legislators with violence if they dared do that as well as whipping up a huge rally with thousands of gun toting weirdos bussed in from all over the country galvanized by wild conspiracy theories about gun confiscations. Northam is trying to prevent the nonsense that happened at Charlottesville in 2017 when the “Unite the Right” rally turned into a melee including several so-called “militias” (they’re not) parading around playing Army dress up and confusing an already chaotic scened that resulted in one death and dozens of injuries when a white supremacist, so incensed at anti-racist demonstrators that he plowed his car into a crowd of them.

In my interactions with gun nuts I’ve always found one consistency – the level of their obsession with their “God given gun rights” is directly coordinated with their lack of qualifications to get near a firearm including criminality.  AND, these people just don’t have the common sense to understand that threatening a legislator’s or their family’s lives with gun violence is not a good way to make their case that they should be allowed to parade around in public toting an assault weapon with a loaded 30 round magazine.  It’s like trying to negotiate with a cornered badger.  There’s just no upside in even trying.

Remember our reporting about the “militia” group American Freedom Keepers who waltzed into Little Cambodia last month with a racist motorcycle club, running out FEMA and other workers and declaring themselves in charge?  Remember how we wrote about how gun crazies often try to recast themselves as dewy-eyed do-gooders when their gun-slinging gets them into a world of trouble?

Welp, things are not going well for AFK, as they’ve been named in a lawsuit filed by the City of Charlottesville and others for the riots that they made worse by their gun toting presence in August.  AFK was named among other groups, especially the one that calls themselves the Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia, a bunch of gun nuts from Latrobe Pennsylvania led by “Colonel” Christian Yingling (yeah, sure), whose image was all over the media that weekend declaring himself and his crowd in charge.

The filing is pretty clear and certainly damning of the actions of our friends and the other private militia groups who decided to take over “peacekeeping” (translation: protecting violent racists) at the time.  NOW, instead of begging for money to burnish their image for their “charity” work in Texas, they get to beg for money for lawyers.  They’re calling themselves the Charlotte 32 as if they’re some poor persecuted group of innocents.  They also love themselves some Latin.  Their new motto copied from Wikipedia is Si vis pacem, para bellum, which translates roughly to “If you want peace, prepare for war”.  It seems like a pretty silly motto, being that they started the war in Charlottesville by showing up and trying to take over.

You can bet they’re pretty worried, too.  The lawsuit states:

Oh, and it gets better:

That lawlessness certainly happened in Charlottesville with one death and many injured.  This suit makes for pretty juicy reading for 79 pages.  Among other things, the City of Charlottesville seeks injunctive relief to keep these dangerous screwballs out of Charlottesville in an effort to take their city back from racists and weirdos.

And it’s not a moment too soon.

When a loose collection of neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, and assorted other alt-right dumbasses amassed in Charlottesville, Virginia last week to scream about everyone they hate including Jews, African Americans, and Muslims, they were “protected” from non-existent oppression by another loose collection of weirdos. This particular group was made up of camo-clad goofballs armed more heavily than local and state police complete with body armor, semi-auto rifles and side arms, and with enough other tactical gadgets to give any gun nut a hard-on. One of those groups, the Pennsylvania Light Foot “Militia”, was there, playing dress up and parading around like they were some kind of actual military or law enforcement group, which they most certainly are not.

This “militia”, which is really just a group of paranoid white guys who like to run around in the Pennsylvania woods playing war, is lead by Christian Yingling, who names among influencers in his life cynical carnival barker and