Guns at Polling Places

The media has made a big deal about this in the last couple of weeks, most recently the Chicago Tribune via the Washington Post.  The report used a story from the Huffington Post to illustrate that people open carrying at polling places are doing so to intimidate voters:

On Friday, voters headed to drop off their absentee ballots at a voting location in Virginia's Loudoun County were greeted by a man sporting both a Trump shirt and a gun strapped to his waist, the Huffington Post reported.

"He's like, 'Who are you going to vote for, crooked Hillary?' And I was like, that's really none of your business," Erika Cotti, an active Democrat, told the website.

It may not have been the most effective mode of political outreach. But it wasn't an illegal one. Virginia is an open carry state - and, as in most open carry states, there is no exception for polling places.

Most states have no laws regarding guns in polling places, because, for the most part, they haven't really needed to make them. The confluence of firearms and polling places isn't something America has been concerned about on a national scale - until now.

It's a right to carry firearms for personal protection, in Virginia, that includes both open and concealed.  As gun owners, we should decide the best methods so as not to draw unnecessary attention to ourselves.