By Patrick J. Buchanan, January 21, 2020
Virginia gun owners believe their moral obligation to protect families, friends and themselves in a violent society justifies their right to keep and carry firearms, no matter what the Virginia legislature says.
On the holiday set aside in 2020 to honor Martin Luther King, the premier advocate of nonviolent Gandhian civil disobedience, thousands of gun owners gathered in Richmond to petition peacefully for their rights.
King had preached that there was a higher law that justified breaking existing laws that mandated racial segregation.
When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in the front of the bus in Montgomery, when Freedom Riders integrated bus terminals, when black students sat at segregated lunch counters in North Carolina, they challenged state law in the name of what they said was a higher law.
And Virginia gun owners believe their moral obligation to protect families, friends and themselves in a violent society justifies their right to keep and carry firearms, no matter what the Virginia legislature says.
Americans have a long history of breaching laws in the name of a higher law or God-given rights. ….
