In the seven years since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Connecticut, pressure on lawmakers by a surging gun-control movement has resulted in the passage of hundreds of new gun-safety laws. Momentum to regulate guns accelerated again after the shooting, almost two years ago, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, which marked the end of what might be called the “thoughts and prayers” era. In the months since Parkland, more than thirty states and the District of Columbia signed gun-safety bills into law. Virginia, the home of the National Rifle Association, was an exception. Last spring, after a mass shooting at a municipal building in Virginia Beach, Republicans voted down a proposed slate of gun-control bills in an emergency legislative session that lasted less than ninety minutes.
In November, Democrats won control of the Virginia general assembly for the first time in more than two decades, after campaigning heavily on gun-control measures, including universal background checks, an assault-rifle ban, and “red flag” laws that allow authorities to temporarily confiscate weapons from a person who poses a threat. Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun-control group founded by Michael Bloomberg, spent two and a half million dollars in Virginia in 2019, eight times more than the National Rifle Association.
Virginia is a polarized state, with a dense liberal population in Richmond, the Washington suburbs, and around its universities, and a conservative majority in its rural areas. In the weeks after the election, a backlash began. Dozens of counties and municipalities declared themselves gun-rights “sanctuaries,” language lifted from the immigrant-rights movement. The gun-rights group known as the Virginia Citizens Defense League tripled in size, from eight thousand to twenty-four thousand members, and called for gun-rights activists to rally on January 20th, Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, in Richmond. The holiday is known as Lobby Day in Virginia, when citizens roam the halls of the Pocahontas State Office Building and speak with their legislators about their concerns. V.C.D.L. has attended Lobby Day since 2002, and in recent years has drawn a few hundred members. This year, fear began to grow among government officials that the ranks of the activists would include people intent on violence. Groups promoting Lobby Day included the anti-government militia organizations the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters; Alex Jones, the right-wing conspiracy theorist and founder of InfoWars; and several organizers of the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally in August, 2017. Online, people threatened violence. Accelerationist neo-Nazis described the occasion as a possible spark to a second Civil War. On January 15th, the state’s Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, declared a temporary state of emergency, banning all weapons on capitol grounds. On January 16th, the F.B.I. arrested three members of the white-supremacist group the Base who were allegedly heading to Richmond for Lobby Day with hundreds of rounds of ammunition. As news of the arrests spread, the V.C.D.L. announced that several militias had “graciously” offered to provide security, but that the group would rely on the police, “not to mention enough citizens armed with handguns to take over a modern mid-sized country.” The gun-rights groups that planned to attend were both touting how safe the event would be and preparing for it as if for a battle. As unprecedented as the protest was, it was happening because the gun-rights movement had lost its foothold in a purple state. A disaster would ruin them. A success might offer a template for gun-rights activism in Virginia and around the country.
On the evening of Sunday, January 19th, the V.C.D.L. gathered for its annual pre-Lobby Day dinner, at the Hibachi Sushi and Supreme Buffet, inside the Westland strip mall. There were steam tables, a koi pond beneath painted murals, prawns glistening under heat lamps, sweet-and-sour sauces, stainless-steel vats of quivering jello, and weapons in holsters. In a back room, the gun-rights activists ate from plates piled with egg rolls, breaded shrimp, lo mein, peanut brittle, pineapple, and French fries. The dinner, which is usually a local affair, had the feeling of a national banquet. There were supportive state legislators visiting from North Carolina and activists who had driven from as far away as Missouri and Florida. “These are normal American people, not fringe, racist haters,” Pam Liner, from Morven, Georgia, told me. Liner sells livestock for a living and has a special affection for donkeys, which she delivers to customers up and down the East Coast. She heard about the rally on television and decided to come by herself; her friends were too scared to join her.
