I get that Virginia is going down a very dark path with regard to gun regulations, but that doesn’t mean people have to go out of their way to act like they rode a bus with less mass than the rest of us. Most of the state has some degree of sense; it’s generally just the people up around the Beltway that can’t be trusted to actually respect people’s rights.
And it seems that Rappahannock County, which is pretty close to that beltway, has a problem.
It seems that many in the county have an issue with a concealed carry class being held at a public school.
More than 100 people have left Facebook comments about last week’s story in the Rappahannock News, “School Board wrestles with optics of concealed carry class,” after the School Board spent more than 30 minutes debating whether a concealed carry class belongs on a public high school campus.
Community members questioned the decision to host the July 16 class at Rappahannock County High School, where $10 from each registration fee will go to the Rappahannock County Republican Committee.
The Facebook discussion included residents who opposed the class being held at the school, others who defended the venue and some who simply sought more information about the event.
Now, in fairness, a lot of people defended the class, and that’s good news.
The fact that literally anyone had a problem with this is asinine.
First, this is happening during summer break, when no students will be in the building. If there was some problem with overlap–I don’t see how, but roll with me for a bit–then it’s nonexistent during the summer.
Second, this is a class that is being held in space available to almost anyone to rent when not in use for its primary purpose, which is supposedly educating children. If someone can host a knitting class there, or use the space to talk about climate change, then why is it somehow wrong to host a concealed carry class?
Many of the comments the Rappahannock News opted to highlight argued, rightly, that if you have anxiety about guns, then this class should be viewed as a good thing, since it teaches people how to safely carry a firearm. It should be seen as a good thing, but some people are too blinded by their own hoplophobia to comprehend such a thing.
See, what they want is to have guns, gun ownership, and concealed carry relegated to some ghetto where only “those people” will take part. They want to continue to stigmatize gun ownership, concealed carry, and anything else to do with the Second Amendment because, if they do, it becomes easier to take away our right to keep and bear arms without some massive legal fight.
After all, how can there be a fight when everyone is too afraid of ostracism to stand up?
Of course, those people have miscalculated if they think they can browbeat us all, but that doesn’t mean they won’t do it to enough people that we’re just some noisy minority who most people dismiss.
Once upon a time, this wouldn’t have been a thing.
Personally, I think Virginia can fix all of this by ending education requirements for concealed carry, but the odds of that happening are only slightly greater than Iran deciding its official religion is now Unitarianism.
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