Gun supporters from across the country showed up in the thousands on Martin Luther King Jr. Day for a rally in Richmond, Virginia. Governor Northam temporarily banned all weapons from Capitol grounds due to threats of violence but thousands of people equipped with weapons accumulated on nearby streets.
Homeland security expert Juliette Kayyem joined Boston Public Radio on Wednesday to speak about safety threats during the rally.
"Terror won that day in the sense that if you were an anti-gun activist you were unlikely to be there, counter rallies were canceled," she said. "Civic participation was silenced, this was not a moment of first amendment greatness."
It was legal for people to openly carry guns outside of the ban from Capitol grounds, Kayyem said.
"It was lawful under state law and so that's why you need to have a 50 state strategy for gun control," she said. "Federal rules do matter but the most interesting stuff is going on in the states and this is the lesson learned."
Kayyem is an analyst for CNN, former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security and faculty chair of the homeland security program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
