Every once in a while a headline catches my eye because it is so profoundly misleading that it can only be purposeful. This is one of those times.
A Huffington Post article entitled “A Guy In A Trump Shirt Carried A Gun Outside Of A Virginia Polling Place. Authorities Say That’s Fine” has the strange non sequitur subtitle: “The incident happened in the wealthiest county in America.” Its url also contains, for no apparent reason, the term “voter intimidation.”
Here’s the story:
A man wearing a Donald Trump shirt and carrying a weapon stood outside a voting location in Loudoun County, Virginia, on Friday. Authorities in the nation’s richest county are apparently OK with that.Erika Cotti encountered the man when she went to vote at the county’s registrar’s office, she told The Huffington Post. Virginia doesn’t have early voting per se, but voters can cast in-person absentee ballots for a host of reasons, like if they’re going to be out of the county or city on Election Day.“I had my 9-year-old son with me. I felt intimidated,” Cotti said. “And I had to explain to my 9-year-old why a man with a 357 magnum is standing outside the polling station.”Cotti said the man offered her a Republican sample ballot, which she declined.“He’s like, ‘Who are you going to vote for, crooked Hillary?’ And I was like, that’s really none of your business,” Cotti said, adding that the man was standing in the sidewalk outside of the office when they left and blocking their path.Judy Brown, Loudoun County registrar, confirmed that the man was standing outside her office in Leesburg and handing out GOP literature.“There is a gentleman standing outside the office with a holstered gun,” Brown told HuffPost. “According to law enforcement, because Virginia is open carry, he’s allowed to have it.”
Virginia is indeed open carry, and I’m sure the police checked the guy’s permit when they were called to the scene. No one was threatened, no one was harmed.
And yes, HuffPo, Virginia’s open carry law applies even in the “wealthiest county in America.”
Essentially, someone saw a guy with a legal holstered gun. In Virginia.
Oh . . . and he was wearing a threatening Trump T-shirt!
Quick! Alert the (demonstrably biased) media!
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