Gun Protests
September 1st, 2007 by Syd
Thoughts on gun protests by Jim Shepherd
Contrary to what you might have read in the media, the largest gun protests this week were not at the anti-gun protests held across the country on Tuesday by Jesse Jackson and The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Those, I’ll gleefully point out, were resounding failures, despite the “huge turnout” trumpeted in a Brady release. Dozens, not even hundreds, turned out in Washington and a pair (as in two) people turned out in Seattle for a protest that lasted nearly a minute.
The nation’s largest gun-related protest took place in Norfolk, Virginia on Tuesday when about 100 gun rights advocates - most wearing guns and buttons reading “Guns Save Lives” came to the Norfolk City Council Meeting. The protest was called by the Virginia Citizens Defense League after Chet Szymecki of Yorktown, Virginia was arrested in June at Norfolk’s Harborfest for carrying a gun.
Szymecki was arrested for violating a city ordinance banning guns at Harborfest.
Unfortunately (for the city), officials now acknowledge that ordinance violates state law. City officials are banned from banning guns in Virginia.
Further, carrying a weapon openly is legal in Virginia - even at a large event like Harborfest. When city officials realized they were in error, the charges were dropped.
The city says it was an honest mistake, but the protesters aren’t buying that explanation. Further, Szykmecki says he was “manhandled” and hurt by police and his wife and their three children and two others accompanying them were traumatized.
Szymecki has, as they say, “retained counsel.”
During the protest, others described incidents in which they were questioned and even handcuffed by police for carrying a firearm openly. As Philip Van Cleave of the Virginia Citizens Defense League said, “Apparently you have some officers who don’t understand the law.”
The meeting, unfortunately, got “rowdy” and at times a bit “unsavory” in the descriptions of the police. One council member left the meeting as the protesters started speaking in what he later said was a “protest of their protest.”
– Jim Shepherd, The Shooting Wire
See also: Gun Protest Draws Two!, Claims of ‘Huge’ Anti-Gun Protests Were Lies, Says CCRKBA and Cities Join in Gun Violence Protest
We as gun owners, when voicing a grievence about the police should always take the high road. Be civil, but forth-right in your complaint and never vitrolic, for it doesn’t help your case. Let alone the perception of gun owners with the un-educated public, who get their perception from the media and movies.