Richmond Coliseum Gun Ban Fixed

[DaveH]

As Va members may know the State Republican Convention was held in the Richmond Coliseum last week. Richmond had a unenforceable gun ban in effect.

VCDL took the opertunity to lead a action to challenge the ban.

It worked.

From the VA-ALERT:

On Thursday the issue of lawful carry at the Richmond Coliseum was fixed. The Richmond Coliseum receive communications from VCDL members earlier in the week saying that they were not going to obey the Coliseum's unlawful gun ban.

The Coliseum staff quickly met with their lawyers and were told that the Coliseum could not prohibit the otherwise lawful carry of firearms.

The Coliseum's new VCDL-influenced policy on firearms, which finally puts them in compliance with state preemption law, was briefed to their security staff.

A few VCDL members started carrying on Thursday, both openly and
concealed, without incident.

No eyes were batted, nor questions asked. Just freedom moving in an unfettered manner.

I have never seen such an ocean of "Gun Save Lives" stickers as I did t the Coliseum on Friday and Saturday! In fact, by counting the tickers we have left, we believe we distributed well over 4,000!!!

Rather than VCDL asking people to wear the stickers, WE were sought out and asked for them. People would ask for a strip of stickers to hand out to the people sitting around them because they were being asked as to where they got the cool sticker. ;-)

It was really great to be around so many like-minded individuals this weekend. And there was no way for the speakers at the convention to miss that mass of orange stickers stretching from wall to wall.

We would like to thank Kirby Burch and the CSA-PAC Commonwealth Sportsmens Alliance Political Action Committee) for letting the VCDL-PAC share their table.

Victory is sweet - here is the Coliseum's NEW policy on guns:

The Richmond Coliseum

Weapons
NOTICE: The Richmond Coliseum's policy against bringing weapons into the building or arena shall not otherwise prohibit the lawful carrying of a handgun or other firearms or the lawful carrying of a concealed handgun with a valid permit issued pursuant to Virginia Code Section 18.2-308. The Richmond Coliseum reserves the right to search any person (including any belongings) prior to entry and while on the Coliseum's premises and to temporarily stop any person carrying a concealed handgun for the purpose of allowing a law-enforcement officer to examine the person's concealed handgun permit and necessary photo ID. We appreciate your cooperation as we try to maintain a safe and comfortable environment for our employees, guests and performers.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
VA-ALERT is a project of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc.
(VCDL). VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization dedicated to defending the human rights of all Virginians. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a fundamental human right.

VCDL web page: Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. (VCDL)

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[redrick]

Good work, if there is every a place that I feel like I need to carry, it's when I walk through the parking lots in that area. I carried mine there once. When I got to the doors I saw the sign no firearms allowed, so I had to go back and put it in my truck, that was a hard thing for me to do, but it was a day time event for the kids, so I did it. Glad I can CC there now when they are not serving alcohol, and OC when they are.

[retsupt99]

As I started to read the policy statement...

The Richmond Coliseum

Weapons
NOTICE: The Richmond Coliseum's policy against bringing weapons into the building or arena shall not otherwise prohibit the lawful carrying of a handgun or other firearms or the lawful carrying of a concealed handgun with a valid permit issued pursuant to Virginia Code Section 18.2-308. The Richmond Coliseum reserves the right to search any person (including any belongings) prior to entry and while on the Coliseum's premises and to temporarily stop any person carrying a concealed handgun for the purpose of allowing a law-enforcement officer to examine the person's concealed handgun permit and necessary photo ID. We appreciate your cooperation as we try to maintain a safe and comfortable environment for our employees, guests and performers.

I started to think about how THEY could demand one's CCW I.D., but then read that THEY realized that only LE could make such a request.

[xjohnx]

Looks like they have removed that policy already. I guess they figured we would forget about it?

The funny thing is, if you look at the HTML source code of the web page, the policy is still there, but it's commented out so it doesn't display... ugh.