Guest Post: Reflections on the Richmond Rally, by Historian

Coming from my friend and a man whose opinion I strongly value, is an assessment of Richmond from the ground level as well as a historical parallel to the Troubles in Ireland. I disagree quite strongly regarding any tangible goal that was attained by this rally, not that it matters, have been less than impressed by anyone touting themselves present, and am perplexed at the continued analog drawn between a fundamental right to be armed against a government infested by Leftists who openly admit they want us in gulags and the civil rights movement of the 60s. One found a willing and receptive audience, the other, futile cries falling on deaf ears. They purposefully did not meet you with force, this time, and for a reason. You were a goldmine of data.

Further, the awareness and technological impact of AI on human terrain mapping may very well have rendered many attempts at organization useless in the coming months with the laws enabling it so; the impact of which cannot be known, because the most ignorant are too busy shouting victory the loudest. We shall see, but the way Governor Northam went about the leadup to the event signaled much to those of us who have experience in targeting insurgent groups. There’s a reason they’re pushing the red flag law first. As I pointed out yesterday, all they need is the mid-level leadership.

Do you honestly believe the Left didn’t learn how to counter their own rise to power?

I promised you my thoughts on the Richmond rally, and here they are:

First off, I’m deeply relieved that the situation in Richmond turned out as well as it did. It could have gone oh so wrong, so quickly, in a variety of ways. And it did not. I have a number of thoughts to share, but first and foremost, I think it is worthwhile to consider WHY this turned out as it did. I’ve been thinking, and found at least three
possible factors:

First off, the Richmond PD is not the Hooville PD. Richmond PD is much larger, for one, and more professional, for another. They clearly did not buy the propaganda that the Charlottesville PD did, and they did not
view the folks showing up as ‘Right wing terrorists.’ I suspect that is also true of the Virginia State police.

Second, the correlation of forces was grossly disproportionate. Not only the relative numbers, but the quality of the Patriot attendees was much higher than the Hooville debacle. The presence of around 20,000 armed individuals outside the wire must have been a very powerful deterrent all by itself, but if you look at the photographs, look at who showed up, a significant percentage of those who were armed outside the wire were clearly veterans who had seen the elephant- “Men who know very well what they are about.”

Third, not only were Patriots much more numerous, and experienced, but a further careful examination of the photographs and video I’ve looked at indicates to me that there were a large number of small groups of associated individuals who moved as a team, 2 to perhaps a dozen per group. These teams of men were scattered throughout the crowd, some of them carefully placing themselves in positions where they could quickly respond to threats from above as well as on the ground. Some of the news reports I read said that the police noted that people were carefully examining their positions and personnel. This speaks to training and much experience being on the sharp end.

Both Antifa and the other communist irregulars must have quickly recognized all of the above and beat a tactical retreat early on, and the powers that be recognized it too. I expect that any Antifa attempt at a false flag outside the wire would have been shut down very quickly by the vets in the crowd.

In my estimation, if the situation had gone kinetic, and especially if the authorities had ‘browned’ those outside the wire by firing on the unarmed folks in Coonman’s killing cage, it is likely that all of the policemen there and most of the communist politicians would have been killed or fled the scene within an hour. Sadly, Coonman the Coward would not have been one of them; he reportedly left Richmond the night before, as did at least one Demoncrat delegate who went to a ‘safe house.’

Patriots did not come to start a war, but they clearly were ready to fight if Coonman and his thuggish allies started it, and it showed.

So, Patriots avoided being set up, held their rally as planned, and told the Richmond politicians that we will not consent to ANY more restrictions on our rights. What was the effect of this demonstration? As one would expect, the rhetoric has not changed, nor have the minority Republicans been able as yet to derail the proposed unConstitutional victim disarmament legislation. The communists in power appear to be unwilling to believe what we are saying. On its face, this seems to have been a tactical victory but at best a strategic draw. We gained nothing of consequence…..or did we?

Napoleon is quoted as saying “In war, the moral is to the physical as ten is to one.” Patriots just delivered a stunning blow to the tyrant’s moral standing, showing any who care to watch and listen that Coonman’s tyranny *will* be resisted by many Virginians living in the Commonwealth, and by Americans from all over the country. Virginians,
*Americans*, will not comply, and yesterday they demonstrated to the world that we have people willing to walk into a known trap, trusting their comrades outside the wire to protect them, or to avenge them, AND that we had people ready and willing to do just that. That blow, while not physical, had and will continue to have tremendous impact on both the tyrants, and on the free people of these united States.

That is not a trivial result. It is also not sufficient.

The physical side of this war, currently still a war of ideas, wants attention, too. My hope is that VCDL takes the next step, and as Aesop suggested, asks the various sheriffs who stood up against this tyranny to start deputizing AND TRAINING a significant number of citizens to oppose the laws still being aimed at destroying our right to bear arms,
and at the people who defend that right. Virginians, and others, need to take this threat seriously, and we need to start building our physical ability to resist. This is much more than knowing how to shoot; learning how to work in small units is KEY to winning.

Another serious lack that begs to be addressed is communications. One way that the tyrants in Richmond did blunt our message was by ensuring that almost nobody heard it. VCDL did not bring or arrange for an alternate PA system. It would not have been difficult to have a MURS transceiver at the podium, transmitting to receivers and audio amplifiers all over downtown, or even a repeater, to spread the message of each speaker all over the area, and ideally to a remote location for recording and posting online.

Logistics and support are evidently lacking. I do not know what arrangements had been made in advance, but it would not have been difficult, given the manpower available onsite, to have contingency plans for medical aid, evac, and reinforcement with the American equivalent of ‘technicals’. The trucks blocking the roads leading to
the Capitol could easily have been moved by groups of people by hand, if needs be, and route security ensured by details assigned to specific intersections, as well as spotter teams ready to interdict a tyrannical response team. Much remains to be done on the planning and training side of things for VCDL, and for the rest of us. Much more can be said on this topic, and I’m sure that better qualified people than I are saying it.

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What I am qualified to talk a bit about is history.

It has often been said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Well, history really doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes; I like Otto Von Bismark’s quote- “Fools may learn from their mistakes. I prefer to learn from the mistakes of others.” What lessons can be drawn that pertain to this situation in Virginia?

I am no supporter of the IRA (either the Official IRA or the Provisionals) or their ideals, but there is much that can be learned from the Irish Troubles. First off, the Provos had catchy songs! One of these, “One shot Paddy” highlights the effectiveness of sniper teams in guerrilla or civil wars. The Daily Mail writeup on yesterday’s rally referenced the 1990 to 1997 sniper war against the British Army in South Armagh, and the use of the M82 Barrett in that conflict, at least one of which was carried to the rally by a New Yorker (“because I can” he replied when asked why he’d brought it.) This brings me to my point.

My reading indicates that the South Armagh IRA force numbered about 40 at its peak, all told. Total in Northern Ireland was probably less than 300 for most of the occupation, and this small group of revolutionaries, outnumbered hundreds to one, on a small island, with no restriction on the police power, prevailed against the best of the British Army, including the SAS.

In particular, the activities of the South Armagh snipers, who are believed to have numbered a total of 8 men (one team of 4 who were caught, and another team who were never caught,) two of them the shooters, with some support from the local ‘brigade,’ demoralized thousands of British troops to the point that over 800 were on sick
leave, and dozens were disciplined for being afraid to stand their post. This despite the objective fact that the two IRA shooters were mediocre and infrequent marksmen, and killed only 9 men in 5 years, failing to kill their targets about 2/3 of the time. Think about that for a moment. Two shooters who rarely engaged at more than 300 yards, and most times closer. Two.

The activities of these IRA teams were commemorated by the IRA song, “One shot Paddy” which was played and sung regularly in Irish Republican pubs. If eight men can demoralize and render combat ineffective thousands of elite British troops, killing only 9 in five years, what would be the effect of dozens, if not hundreds of such sniper teams
operating in Virginia? For that matter, what are the differences between Northern Ireland and Virginia? How do they compare?

Virginia is comprised of 133 separate entities, 95 counties and 38 independent cities, and measures about 40767 square miles. With a population of about 8.5 million, the population density is about 209 people per square mile, on average, with much of the population residing in Tidewater, Richmond and Northern Virginia. Virginia has no
significant barriers to entry, unlike Ireland, and, at least in theory, there are supposed to be legal constraints on the government’s police power, again, unlike Ireland.

There are probably about 17 million guns in the state, and a large quantity of ammunition. More of both are available right across the borders in North Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia, with no border controls (at least for now.) And Virginians have a long tradition of marksmanship. There are tens of thousands of men in the state who could outshoot the IRA snipers, and a large subset of those who can make head shots at 500 yards.

Northern Ireland is composed of 6 counties, measuring about 5463 square miles, with a population today of about 1.8 million people, or about 330 people per square mile. The British army, at the peak, had deployed about 27,000 men in Northern Ireland, or about the same number as the patriots that showed up yesterday morning in Richmond. That was about one soldier for every 66 Irish residents, or about one for every 30 Catholics. With no constraint on the police power, no need for search warrants, no tradition of firearms ownership or stockpile of weapons and
ammunition, and no easy way to import them. No tradition of marksmanship, no deep pool of patriotic marksmen. And the IRA were largely Marxist socialists, to boot.

I could run on about this for a long time, but the bottom line is this. If Virginia were to have only the same percentage of fighters resisting an unConstitutional restriction on the right to keep and bear arms as the IRA did in Ireland during most of the Troubles, that would mean about a thousand resistance fighters. Virginian shooters are much better trained and equipped than the IRA, who had to travel overseas to get basic marksmanship training. There were at least 20 times that many people who showed up on the Patriot side in Richmond yesterday, many of
them far better equipped, trained and far more experienced than the IRA ever were, and some of them up to SAS standards. If the IRA could have fielded 6000 well trained men, or 40 sniper teams in South Armagh, the British would have had no army left in Northern Ireland in very short order. If a similar rising happens in Virginia, it would be orders of magnitude more bloody.

And that is a lesson I hope with all my heart the tyrants in Richmond take to heart, because I pray that America will never see the catastrophe of a modern civil war. Bad as the War between the States was, a modern civil war would be an unparalleled horror. We could have seen one start yesterday, and if Coonman the Coward and his toadies keep
pushing, they will get one. And that would be a very bad thing. To paraphrase Gene Hackman’s character from Unforgiven- “That would hurt REAL bad, not gentle, like before.” I believe that Patriots would prevail, but I dread the price we’d pay.