'I'm just trying to get on TV': Gun rally draws fringe groups, lots of media to Richmond

As each new armed group arrived in downtown Richmond Monday, they were greeted by a swarm of cameras and interviewers asking why they had come out to stand near the Capitol with their guns.

“I’m just trying to get on TV,” said one young man wearing camouflage, drawing laughs from his group of about five armed associates. “Joke’s on you guys.”

One year after more than 20,000 gun enthusiasts swarmed Richmond to protest new gun laws, Monday’s sequel was smaller and stranger.

After being denied a permit to rally on the Capitol grounds, the pro-gun Virginia Citizens Defense League asked its supporters to participate in a vehicular caravan through the city. But several disparate groups, including members of the anti-government Boogaloo movement, the Proud Boys and the Black Panthers, demonstrated on foot around the locked-down Capitol building.

Read more: https://www.virginiamercury.com/2021/01/18/im-just-trying-to-get-on-tv-gun-rally-draws-fringe-groups-lots-of-media-to-richmond/