Young and old, they demanded one thing: freedom.
On Saturday, a group of gun-toting Washington state residents gathered at the state capitol building in Olympia to protest an ever-expanding government.
Nicole Phillips, left, with a pistol strapped to her belt, stands with her husband, Edward Phillips, who is armed with a rifle and handgun, as she holds their 22-month-old son Edward Phillips IV during a rally by gun-rights advocates at the state capitol Saturday, Feb. 7, 2015, in Olympia, Wash. Approximately 50 demonstrators, including a half-dozen small children, protested rules that prohibit openly carrying guns into the House and Senate viewing galleries. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
On the steps of the capitol building, the roughly 50 protesters listened to Three Percenter founder Mike Vanderboegh and state Reps. Elizabeth Scott and Matthew Shea; watch Shea's address below:
According to Associated Press photographers, quite a few of the demonstrators in attendance were children, and one of the most poignant moments of the day may have come, not from an adult speaker, but from a child.
After the speakers on the steps were finished, the protesters filed into the building, where, as Kit Lange wrote on her blog Patrick Henry Society, a series of protesters pounded on the locked doors of the legislative viewing gallery.
Lange wrote that a young girl named Faith walked up to the doors after the old-timers, knocking and yelling, “Freedom knocks! Open up!”
Trystan Olson, 4, of Spokane, Wash., holds a toy gun as he reaches toward the trigger of the rifle of his father, Erik Olson, during a rally by gun-rights advocates at the state capitol Saturday, Feb. 7, 2015, in Olympia, Wash. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
Lange then posted a list of grievances on the locked doors...
Kit Lange pounds on the door of the House gallery after posting a list of grievances on it during a rally by gun-rights advocates at the state capitol Saturday, Feb. 7, 2015, in Olympia, Wash. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
...before the group walked to the governor's mansion, where they were similarly met with barred doors.
Marie McFadden holds her daughter, Faith, 6, as she prays with armed demonstrators as the group concludes a gun-rights rally at the state capitol Saturday, Feb. 7, 2015, in Olympia, Wash. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
Read the list of grievances the group posted via Patrick Henry Society below:
1. Militarizing police and SWAT Teams2. Stockpiling of Ammunition while Limiting the Rights of Citizens to Purchase Ammunition
3. Distributing License Plate Readers meant to track the movement of law-abiding citizens.
4. Tracking Cell-Phones with Stingray Devices
5. Turning Cell-Phones into Roving Listening Devices
6. Creating Longitudinal Databases to Track Citizens from Birth to Death
8. Carrying Out Military Drills and Lockdowns in American Cities
9. Tracking People via Facial Recognition
10. Using the TSA to Create Databases of “Suspect Citizens”
11. Carrying out Soft Target Checkpoints
12. Directing Government Workers to Spy on Americans
13. Suspending Habeas Corpus in a Time of Peace with NDAA
14. Using Drones to Spy on Citizens and Map Their Property
15. Directing Government Workers to Spy on Americans and Create Linkage Charts of Patriotic Americans
16. Conducting Widespread Spying Networks Using Fusion Centers and Listing Americans as “Terrorists” Without Trial
17. Carrying Out Constitution-Free Border Control Searches
18. Funding City-Wide Surveillance Cameras
19. The State governor demanding that the Washington State Patrol violate their own oath to the Constitution by authorizing them to suppress the people’s right to the First and Second Amendments through threats of arrest and force.
20. The State Legislature unlawfully and deceitfully reclassifying firearms as “props”.
21. The state legislature arbitrarily denying the right of a group of adults, based on their age, from viewing their government proceedings if they choose to exercise their Second Amendment right.
22. The state legislature continuing to allow the federal government to illegally lay claim to and hold lands belonging to the people of the state of Washington.
23. Infringement upon the unalienable basic right to self-defense of the people through unjust laws that violate not only the federal and state Constitution but natural law.
24. Taxation without representation, through unlawful and unnecessary taxes and fees charged for the exercise of rights, and the repeated refusal of the state legislature to hear and act in accordance with the will of the people and the Constitution that binds their power.
25. The passing of rules in secret by the State House, State Senate, Speaker pro tempore, and the Lieutenant Governor, that directly violate the rules of the people.
26. The abuse of power by elected officials such as (but not limited to) Rep. Laurie Jinkins and Rep. Jim Moeller, who have used their positions to exert control over the people and deny them their rights.
27. The allowance of judges to legislate from the bench that a police officer’s ignorance of the law is grounds for the violation of the People’s rights.
Read more about the Saturday march in Olympia via Patrick Henry Society here.
—
Follow Zach Noble (@thezachnoble) on Twitter
