VA: Gun Shop and John Crump Sue Gov. Northam over Nations Gun Show

AmmoLand ^ | 18 November, 2020 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

Image screenshot from The Nations Gun Show website, cropped and scaled by Dean Weingarten

Showmasters, who run the Nations Gun Show in Chantilly, Virginia; John Crump; and Sonny's Guns and Transfers, who frequently utilize the show, have filed a lawsuit against Governor Northam and M. Norman Oliver as the State Health Commissioner, in order to prevent their shutting down one of the largest gun shows in the nation next weekend, 20, 21 and 22 November 2020.

The restrictions were issued on Friday, 13 November, becoming effective on 16 November. The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday, 17 November. The Nations Gun Show is scheduled for Friday, 20 November.

Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia is no friend of gun owners or the right to keep and bear arms. Governor Northam has imposed numerous Constitutionally questionable restraints on people in Virginia as executive orders, bypassing the legislature.

A gun show is as peaceable an assembly of persons imaginable. People at gun shows routinely discuss the problems of overstepping of government power. Governor Northam's actions will be discussed and condemned at the Nations Gun Show in Chantilly, Virginia. The motivation of the Governor is sure to be discussed.

Many of the emergency restrictions in the executive orders on commerce, movement, and assembly are vague and subject to interpretation. Such is the case with the latest set of restrictions.

One of the points of clarity requested in the lawsuit, is how the Nations Gun Show is classified. Months of planning, hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenditures by the organizers, exhibitors, attendees, and millions of dollars in economic activity all hang on the wording of vague classifications of emergency orders.

[marktwain]

Just got the word. Local authorities agreed to classify the show as a brick and mortar business, thus allowing it to continue. Then the state Attorney General, Mark Herring, stepped in and shut down the show, which has been scheduled to start today.

[Reno89519]

Not much time to reverse this, maybe too late, damage done?

[marktwain]

I think the show has been cancelled.

The AG stepped in and said the Governor has the authority to do this because it is an emergency.

Covid19. Emergency powers trump all.

They are being used to destroy small businesses all over the country.

We never quarantined the healthy before.

This shows, when the government and the media combine, the country can be kept in an emergency indefinitely.

[deks]

It’s a huge hall with plenty of room for people to spread out.

[Clutch Martin]

I went to a livestock show a few mondays ago. NP

[Truth29]

When is it time? The despots keep pushing. Next up is an attempt to outlaw semiauto rifles and magazine capacity limits. They are going to try and disarm us as they move to full tyranny.

[baclava]

Probably just as well, the sticker shock from the scalpers would have driven the herd to stampede the exits, hundreds of lives saved.

[Truth29]

There would have been no scalpers since the tickets are readily available at the door. What this was however, was the force of the state overriding the local decision to allow the gun show. Northam and company are using COVID-19 to go after gun shows and gun owners. Per VCDL, the pending legislative agenda proposed by Fairfax County would ban semi auto rifles and limit magazine sizes. This would pretty much eliminate most firearms used in the state.