I've been hoping and waiting for someone to rebut the knee-jerk liberal reaction Tony Bender had to the the diverse Americans who attended the Second Amendment rally in Virginia in his Jan. 23rd column. Rather than a a serious take on the subject he resorted to snarky purial comments that ignored the facts.

Calling those in attendance "white nationalists" or "white supremacists" was the laziest cliched reaction the liberal left has. I guess he forgot to add the label of homophobes.

One of my favorite speakers was the keynote speaker who happened to be a young black woman whose first comment was "Man, this is the worst white nationalist gathering I've ever been to they had to bring me in." She knew how the event was going to be portrayed despite the facts.

He wrote what I assume he thought was a pithy remark about the attendees wearing masks, evoking images of black clad armed invaders with their faces covered. A simple search would have shown him that among the estimated 22,000 people in peaceful attendance, only one person was arrested. That person was arrested for breaking the law about covering one's face with a mask. That person was a young black woman.

Another simple search would have found the vocal group surrounding the Black Guns Matter movement. They were in attendance standing up for the original mission of the NRA, which was to make sure the African American population was armed for their own protection. A cursory search would have found that the local members of Antifa were there. Were they marching against the Second Amendment and protecting the world from the white nationalists? No those silly people didn't realize they too were white nationalists and were marching with the Second Amendment supporters.

Another group that was present was led by Veronica Slootsky on behalf of the Jewish community.

We have a lot of concerns about safety of the Jewish community, given these new laws, The proposed gun laws would prevent Jewish people carrying guns at religious events where they already feel targeted.

A rabbi wouldnt even be able to carry a weapon in his own synagogue, attendee Steve Birnbaum said. SB 35, that allows a municipality to ban firearms at permitted events, our Hanukkah menorah lightings are permitted events. Our highest risk events we would be left defenseless.

Please, editors of the Forum, we understand that you try to hire inflammatory writers to throw out red meat, but if you wish to remain relevant and trusted at least check the veracity of the so-called opinions. They are diatribes that are written up without looking into the facts of the event but rather what the writer believes the event to be about. You can not complain that this country is becoming divided and uncivil and then contribute to it in this way.

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Letter: Here's the truth about recent Second Amendment rally - INFORUM