U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Virginia businesses want action on gun safety,” a Wednesday opinion piece in The Washington Post claims. “Unlike ever before, business leaders and corporations are actively stepping forward to propose and support bold and substantive action to keep their customers, employees and communities safe.”
Not all Virginia businesses do, and Ken Biberaj, the opinion piece author doesn’t even try to substantiate his claim. Instead, he cites high-profile national examples, such as anti-gun actions from Dick’s Sporting Goods and Walmart. Even when he links to “recent polling,” it goes to an article about an agenda-driven PBS News Hour/NPR/Marist national poll, not one targeting Virginia businesses.
Still, it’s no surprise to those who follow such things that gun-grabbers manipulate those they wish to swindle out of their birthrights. And it’s hardly a jaw-dropper that The Washington Post would encourage submissions from both editorial writers and “news” reporters who play fast and loose with “Policies and Standards” that pledge to:
“[T]ell ALL the truth so far as it can learn it … not be the ally of any special interest … [not] consciously or unconsciously mislead… or even deceive… the reader [and to ] avoid active involvement in any partisan causes…”
So who is this Biberaj character, and which Virginia businesses is he speaking for?
We’re told he’s “a member of the board of directors of the Democratic Business Council of Northern Virginia,” but that in itself doesn’t really tell us who the member businesses are. We can see what their self-promotion says they’re about from the DemBiz website, but that doesn’t tell us which specific businesses are undermining the rights of their gun-owning Virginia customers so that choices can be made about whose store doesn’t deserve to be patronized.
Looking at the “leadership,” it actually doesn’t look like that’s applicable. The Executive Committee is comprised of a Democrat PAC board member and consulting firm advisor, a commercial real estate finance VP, a commercial real estate finance and investment consultant, and yet another consultant who says she “help[s] leaders ignite change, accelerate success and create workplaces where people want to work,” whatever the hell that actually means. The Board of Directors appears equally insulated from the retail impacts of angering gun owners.
In short, they’re above-it-all elitists intent on being influencers and string-pullers.
Ditto for Biberaj, who is another commercial real estate mucky-muck and a transplant from New York City, bringing Big Apple politics and “values” with him to “help” turn Virginia blue. And therein lies what’s really going on— changing demographics are what is doing that, something Bibaraj, the son of Eastern bloc immigrants himself, understands full well (and which our “gun rights leaders” have yet to admit).
So yes, the state that won’t even turn out a blackfaced Democrat governor and attorney general or a Democrat lieutenant governor accused of sexual assault, will continue its leftist descent. Guns are just being highlighted here because citizen disarmament is central to the larger plan. To claim generic “Virginia businesses” are demanding more infringements is a manipulative lie. And we know from their own words what Democrat Socialists think of the “bourgeoisie.”
Those businesses are not typically the ones out there screaming for the Democrat platform of higher taxes, higher wages, more regulatory chains, and making ordinary people even more vulnerable to “walk-in” violence.
Such dangers rarely stalk the halls of investment and consulting firms, which, by the way, are also adept at insulating themselves from the effects of burdensome Democrat policies via write-offs the little guys don’t get, and also via “who you know” and quid pro quo connections. As comedian/philosopher George Carlin observed, “It’s a big club and you ain’t in it.” Besides, the elites who pull strings or suck up hard enough are not the ones who have to do without when collectivism fails to deliver the goods.
“Business leaders” such as these, while more “economic fascists” than anything, nonetheless bring to mind a quote that takes many forms and is variously attributed to Lenin, to Stalin, to Marx and to others:
“The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”
They should remember what happens when useful idiots are no longer needed and are then designated as useless eaters. Because the radicals they’re helping to assume power haven’t forgotten.
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Afterword: I see next Monday, DemBiz is hosting Shannon Watts to tell them why advocating customer disarmament is good for business. Who thinks any of the “concerned for social justice” Democrats will ask her what role she played in flacking for Monsanto and its Roundup cancer damage control PR?
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.