So this is what America has come to.
The chairman of a local Republican party in Virginia threatened a Democratic legislator leading the campaign to restrict access to assault weapons. He threatened to kill him and marched outside his home with weapons.
A Democratic lawmaker who is leading an effort to ban assault weapons in Virginia has asked local prosecutors to consider pressing charges against a gun-toting Republican Party chair who protested outside his home on Saturday.
Del. Mark Levine (D-Alexandria) said Brandon Howard, chair of the Hopewell Republican Party and head of the gun group Right to Bear Arms Virginia, may have violated Virginia statutes related to intimidation and harassment.
Levine referred the case to Alexandria City Commonwealth Attorney Bryan Porter, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Howard posted Levine’s home address to a Facebook event prior to his protest, and read it again in a video he posted to the platform on Saturday.
“I hope you kissed your wife,” Howard said in the video. “I hope you kissed your husband. I hope you kiss your children goodbye before you come and take mine [firearm], because that’s the last time you’d have ever kissed them in your life.”
Levine, who got wind of the protest through the Facebook event, called the police. A third protestor decided to sit it out after seeing the police presence, according to Howard.
Levine told VPM News that he watched Howard patrol the perimeter of his home wielding a military-style semi-automatic shotgun and pistol.
“I just don’t think decisions in America should be made at the point of a gun,” Levine said. “I think that happens in Syria and Somalia and Russia, North Korea, but I think in our country, politicians shouldn’t make up their mind because they’re afraid of being shot.”
Levine’s proposed assault weapons ban cleared the House of Delegates last week; it would allow existing assault weapons owners to keep their guns.
Howard sparked controversy by leading a group carrying assault weapons through the Alexandria Farmers Market. He also launched a run for Hopewell City Council by saying he would give away firearms, according to NBC-12.
The bill to limit access to assault weapons, supported by Governor Ralph Northam, was defeated when four moderate Democrats joined with the Republicans to vote it down.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This maniac is threatening to kill someone over some very mild gun laws?! The GOP is a danger to this country.
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YES, “The GOP is a danger to this country.”
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Agreed !
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exposing that strangely surreal circle: making laws to be safe from crazy guys with guns is unlikely to happen because of crazy guys with guns
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From the French: Touché. From the Yiddish: Oy gevalt.
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This is what the Party of Lincoln has come to. The nation as a whole is better — for now.
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Not quite the same level of intimidation but worth noting… Trump intimidating the press.
Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker of the Washington Post and authors of A Very Stable Genius on C-Span January 20. 2020 were asked about their safety.
Phil Rucker said this: “Without getting into much detail there have been minutes where we have been threatened. The Washington Post does an incredible job with security and protocols and finding ways to protect us and we are really grateful for that. It is a dangerous time and I go to a lot of Trump rallies as part of my job covering the White House and to be honest, there’s nothing scarier than being in the press pen in the floor of an arena of 20,000 people and have the President pointing at you in the pen and say they are despicable people. They’re the enemy of the state. And to have supporters turn around and give you /(a finger) and thank God nothing worse has happened. But there are a lot of moments of those rallies where I and Carol and her colleagues really worry that somebody could do something crazy.” About 00.48.08
https://www.c-span.org/video/?468294-1/a-stable-genius&start=2860
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You’re not really a true Trump Christian until you’ve made your first death threat. America 2020.
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Along with the occupation of Malheur NWR a while back and the various marches in various towns, this strikes me as a disturbing growth of violence on the right. Similar violence from the left would have the TV talking heads wagging their tongues excitedly.
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Years of propaganda (from Rush, Fox, etc.) that demonizes the Other may well culminate in assassinations and massacres of the Other by their armed-to-the-teeth followers. It will be no contest, as liberals are largely unarmed. Propaganda is a deadly weapon. I think of the hate radio program in Rwanda that launched the genocide there by announcing “Cut down the tall trees” (“tall trees”: code for Tutsis).
More than ever I feel history education in this country has been and continues to be grossly inadequate. We may soon reap the consequences of this fecklessness.
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