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    Filed 16 January 2020 and currently in committee.

    Anything written, said, or even hinted at that’s even slightly dissenting from their agenda will be taken by the typical Democrats as a threat.

    This is nothing short of operational Totalitarianism.

    If anyone at the rally knew about HB1627, they didn’t say anything at all.

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      This is the first I’ve heard about HB1627. It’s difficult to keep all of these straight. HB1627 doesn’t even appear on VCDL’s bill tracker. (If the tracker is exclusively 2A-focused, that might be a good reason for VCDL to exclude it. On the other hand, odds of an enacted HB1627 being used against law-abiding 2A supporters seem fairly high.)

      In Virginia, threats and harassment are already crimes under existing law, of course. Existing law (§ 18.2-60.1.) treats threats against “the Governor or his immediate family” differently and more seriously. But my understanding is that under existing law, those criminal charges would be brought, and a jury seated, in the jurisdiction where the alleged supposed was made.

      If HB1627 were to become law, supposed threats against “the Governor, Governor-elect, Lieutenant Governor, Lieutenant Governor-elect, Attorney General, or Attorney General-elect, a member or employee of the General Assembly, a justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia, or a judge of the Court of Appeals of Virginia” could also be prosecuted in “the City of Richmond.”

      I am unaware of any significant number of credible threats made against those state employees. And Monday’s rally was peaceful. So there does not seem to be a problem that needs to be solved.

      So why has a Democrat proposed this new law? It is to prosecute Internet comments and other speech viewed as lawful (where made) in a city with Democrat-dominated juries. It is intended to put those noisome right-wingers in their place. They are second-class citizens. They do not deserve the right to a jury of their peers. They deserve only a jury of Democrats.

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      Here’s the Democrat politician who is the author of the bill: https://virginiageneralassembly.gov/house/members/members.php?district_address=&district_phone=&district_fax&id=H0288

      Here’s what he thinks of the Second Amendment (hint: doesn’t like it very much, wants a “ban on assault weapons,” etc.): https://twitter.com/JeffMBourne/status/1146529411832909824