OPINION:
In case you missed it: Virginia has gone completely Democrat. The last election ushered in a partisan shift of the state government that has left the House of Delegates, the Senate and the governor’s office in Democrats’ power — a leftist hold on the commonwealth that hasn’t been seen for decades.
Make way for the gun controls.
Make way for the crackdowns.
Make way for the violence?
“I’m not the governor,” said Rep. Donald McEachin, Virginia Democrat, according to a report in The Washington Examiner, “but the governor may have to nationalize the National Guard to enforce the [new gun control] law[s].”
Four dead in Oh-Hi-Oh’s got nothing on this guy. This is more the stuff of Tiananmen Square.
Democrats in Virginia have already pre-filed bills to mandate universal background checks; to limit handgun purchases; to raise age limits on would-be firers; to redefine the term assault weapon and impose bans on buys of certain guns and magazines. And more.
And dozens upon dozens of county officials around the state have rushed to pass resolutions declaring their jurisdictions sanctuaries from the state’s gun control storm and announcing that their police chiefs have no intent of enforcing the Dems’ laws.
Enter McEachin.
Enter McEachin with his suggestion that what the governor might want to do, that what the Democrats might want to consider, is to send in the military to make sure the good citizens of these good counties abide by the new state laws — the ones that turn them into criminals overnight, mind you — and give up their guns.
Good God. Visions of enforcement dance in our heads.
How exactly would that go?
Posse Comitatus, anyone?
Granted, this act, signed in 1878 to prohibit federal troops from being used to enforce domestic laws, carves out exceptions for National Guard members operating under the authority of the states. But the spirit of the restrictions should still apply.
Military is military. On this, on enforcement of partisan political gun control, neither active Army nor National Guard should play a role.
But with one quick quip, McEachin took a situation that’s already boiling with tension and fear — namely, the realities of the new blue Virginia and the realization of Democratic-promised gun controls — and made it worse. He went there; he tapped the darkest worries of the gun rights’ crowd — the deep-seated belief that Democrats’ end game is to obliterate the Second Amendment and destroy citizens’ rights to own firearms. And in so doing, he actually let it slip that yes, Democrats will stop at nothing, even violence, to take the guns.
This is not proper politics.
This is a government official’s threat to unleash violence against innocent, law-abiding citizens.
This is America? Indeed. This is a Democratic-controlled vision of America. This is just how far, how violently far, the left is willing to go to bring to fruition the radical anti-Second Amendment agenda.
Now, more importantly, let’s extrapolate Virginia for 2020 elections. Any questions?
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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