No, Virginia is not going to take your Guns. But home-grown, Putin-inspired terrorists may take your country.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/17/virginia-lee-carter-school-strike-bill-guns

I hope a lot of people will read the article at link. 

Some key points: 

1. Virginia Delegate Lee Carter's life has been threatened because some conspiracy-minded folks completely misinterpreted a bill he wrote to protect teachers' right to strike. 

2. It doesn't matter if Lee Carter is a Socialist (or Democrat, Republican, etc); he was duly elected to his office in the Virginia legislature. When we start threatening legislators' lives because of positions they take (or--in this case--we mistakenly think they take), how different are we from ISIS, or brownshirts, or the Red Brigades, etc. 

3. Lee Carter *opposed* legislation that would restrict sales of military-style semi-automatic weapons in the Commonwealth; a point apparently missed by folks who jumped on the bandwagon and are  threatening his life. 

Some additional thoughts: 

Virginia Governor Northam has temporarily prohibited carrying weapons, including firearms, within the state's capitol complex. This is a protective measure in response to social media activity calling for violence against Commonwealth lawmakers. Most states have similar laws and they aren't temporary measures. The federal government has even stronger prohibitions on carrying weapons into government buildings. 

You know who else prohibits firearms on their premises? The NRA and CPAC. Think about that. 

Any legislation passed by the Virginia legislature and Senate to restrict sales and possession of firearms in the Commonwealth must conform to existing US Supreme Court decisions. While the Supreme Court has held that the 2nd Amendment isn't absolute, they have set a pretty high bar that any state or local government most clear in order to restrict firearms ownership. 

So, anyone telling you that the State of Virginia is going to swoop down and seize your handgun or AR-15 or shotgun is lying to you. 

And that brings me to my final point. A lot of the memes showing up on Facebook calling for "patriots" to rally -- with their guns -- at the state capitol, or suggesting that legislators should be hung as traitors to the 2nd Amendment bear the same hallmarks as Russian-produced lies that flooded Facebook and Instagram during the 2016 election cycle. 

Please don't let our country's main enemy tear us apart any more. All these memes are lies. Whether they work or not is up to us.