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Watch: This Virginia Rep's Gun Speech Made Dems Storm Out of Building

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Following the latest mass school shooting, the debate over gun control has heated up in various parts of the country.

One place where the debate has become exceptionally heated is the Virginia House of Delegates, where Democrats actually walked out of the chamber on Friday when a Republican delivered a hard-hitting speech in opposition to further gun control proposals that also called out the shady history of the Democrat Party.

Nick Freitas, a former U.S. Army Green Beret combat veteran who represents Virginia’s 30th District and is running to challenge Democrat Sen. Tim Kaine, delivered a heated response after several Democrat delegates called their Republican counterparts “Nazis” and “segregationists” in floor speeches demanding more gun control laws.

According to The Daily Wire, Freitas initially spoke of how gun control measures were largely ineffective and did little more than infringe upon the Second Amendment, and spoke of the need to take a hard look at why so many shootings happen in “gun free zones,” as well as the need to allow trained and capable teachers to be armed in order to help secure their students, if they so choose.

The Republican delegate also noted how many mass shooters and perpetrators of gun violence come from broken homes, and suggested that things such as the welfare state and even the abortion industry were contributing factors.

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But what really got under the skin of Freitas’ Democrat counterparts — and even caused some to get up and leave — was when he took issue with the manner in which they had been characterizing Republicans opposed to more gun control.

“It’s really difficult to have an open and honest debate about this … because members of this body are comparing members of (the Republican) side of the aisle to Nazis,” and even more offensive, a comparison to “segregationists.”

Do you agree that some Democrats project the sins of their own party onto their ideological opponents?
“It was not our party that supported slavery, that fought women’s suffrage, that rounded up tens of thousands of Asian Americans and put them in concentrations camps, that supported Jim Crow, that supported segregation, or supported mass resistance,” Freitas said. “That wasn’t our party, that was the Democrat Party.”

“I’d be really appreciative that every time you want to make a powerful point, you don’t project the sins, the atrocities, and the injustices the Democratic Party perpetrated on others onto us,” he added.

Freitas also took issue with the insinuation that every Republican opposed to gun control was bought and “paid off” by the National Rifle Association, and noted that even though Planned Parenthood contributed more in political donations than the NRA, he didn’t view his ideological opponents as evil or bought off by the abortion industry.

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According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, several Democrats expressed outrage at Freitas’ speech and essentially claimed that it had been racially insensitive for him to bring up the indisputable history of their party.

Democrat Del. Lamont Bagby, chair of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, called the speech “hateful and divisive” — as if comparing Republicans to Nazis and segregationists wasn’t hateful and divisive — and said Freitas’ references to broken homes, the welfare state and abortion were little more than racist “dog whistling.”

“We realize that we live in a ugly political moment. So while we were offended, we were not surprised,” Bagby said. “It should embarrass every member of this body that we have allowed such rhetoric to enter these chambers. Bringing up a very painful past to make a political point is disgusting and poisonous.”

Democrat Del. Delores McQuinn, one of those who walked out during the speech, said it was full of “insensitivity and disrespect” and deflected from the issue of gun control. “Let us not bring in things that would be hurtful and painful to people who have to live in a skin that some of you will never know and have to endure a reality that being black in America is sometimes difficult,” she said later on the chamber floor.

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Democrats may have been “offended” at what Freitas had to say, but sometimes the blunt truth is offensive to those who would rather ignore or deny it. Thankfully there are people like this Republican delegate in Virginia who aren’t afraid to say what needs to be said, no matter who might not like it.

Share this story on social media so everyone can listen to this incredible speech from Republican Virginia Delegate Nick Freitas about gun control, the Second Amendment and the dark history of the Democrat Party.

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Ben Marquis is a writer who identifies as a constitutional conservative/libertarian. He has written about current events and politics for The Western Journal since 2014. His focus is on protecting the First and Second Amendments.
Ben Marquis has written on current events and politics for The Western Journal since 2014. He reads voraciously and writes about the news of the day from a conservative-libertarian perspective. He is an advocate for a more constitutional government and a staunch defender of the Second Amendment, which protects the rest of our natural rights. He lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, with the love of his life as well as four dogs and four cats.
Birthplace
Louisiana
Nationality
American
Education
The School of Life
Location
Little Rock, Arkansas
Languages Spoken
English
Topics of Expertise
Politics




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