On August 13 — the day after the Charlottesville car attack — Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) criticized types of firearms citizens can legally carry.
CNN reports that 32-year-old Heather Heyer was killed in the car attack and 19 others were injured. The alleged driver of the car — 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr. — appeared in court via a video link on Monday. He is “being held on suspicion of second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and failure to stop in an accident that resulted in death.”
Following the car attack, McAuliffe criticized out how well-armed Americans can be. The New York Times described some of the participants in Saturday’s face-off as “a line of camouflage-clad militia members toting assault rifles.” The paper then quoted McAuliffe saying, “They had better equipment than our State Police had.”
McAuliffe took a similar stance immediately after the June 14 Alexandria attack when a Bernie Sanders supporter opened fire on Republican lawmakers during Congressional baseball practice. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, McAuliffe spoke out for gun control, saying, “There are too many guns on the street … we worry about this every day for all of our citizens.”
Sarah Mimms quoted him also mentioning “background checks” and the “gun show loophole.” But it turned out that the Bernie Sanders supporter acquired his firearms from a gun store in Illinois, which means he had to pass background checks to get them.
And McAuliffe reacted to the heinous, on-air attack against Alison Parker and Adam Ward in a similar fashion. Just hours after the fatal attack, McAuliffe admitted not knowing how the gunman acquired his gun, yet he stressed a requirement for more background checks was needed. It turned out that the attacker passed a background check to acquire his gun.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.