Virginia’s Democrat Attorney General Mark Herring has triumphantly announced that he blocked the Nation’s Gun Show at the monstrous Dulles Expo Center from operating at full capacity.

🚨BREAKING🚨I have successfully BLOCKED a massive gun show from operating at full capacity this weekend in NOVA.

Putting hundreds or even thousands of Virginians at risk for the sole purpose of selling guns is just not worth it and I’m pleased that the Judge agreed with me.

— Mark Herring (@MarkHerringVA) November 19, 2020

Before his virtue-signaling tweet, Herring secured a partial victory by persuading a judge that sweeping restrictions were necessary at this weekend’s Northern Virginia gun show to prevent it from becoming a superspreader event. The Commonwealth’s top law enforcement officer hoped that the judge would have scrapped the gun show altogether, claiming it had the potential to infect thousands with Covid-19.

Constitutionally-minded plaintiffs, including a gun show promoter and firearms dealer, filed a legal challenge asking the court to consider the “concrete harms” to their livelihoods and businesses. Herring called their arguments “brazenly misinformed.”

WUSA has more on the developments in the legal battle over pandemic restrictions:

Organizers of the Nation’s Gun Show, Showmaster’s Inc., expressed frustrations that these new restrictions from Northam came only a week before their event started.

“The show takes months to put together and it is too late for a notice for most of these businesses to recoup their losses. It will cause irreparable damage to all involved from the building, auxiliary businesses, the exhibitors, the promoter, the hotel, convenience stores, restaurants, and the strip mall,” Showmasters, Inc. said in a statement on its website about the lawsuit filed.

There will be a hearing about the gun show at 10 a.m. on Thursday, according to Herring’s office. Due to the emergency hearing’s timing, this will likely be the deciding moment on whether the gun show can take place.

Showmaster’s, Inc. promotes social distancing on its website, and said that it is scaling back the number of tables it has at its show to 900 to accommodate Northam’s executive order.

Organizers of the Nation’s Gun Show hoped to have 25,000 attendees this weekend. The event takes place multiple times per year.

Herring’s proclamation provoked a fierce and immediate reaction:

Absurd. They require masks, distancing (it’s a giant space) and limited capacity like any store. And it’s not just guns, you’re shutting down dozens of small businesses that operate rely on this to feed their families.

Would you be doing this if it weren’t a gun show?

— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) November 19, 2020

If it was for abortion you’d be singing a different tune

— RIP Stinky T. Cat (@stinkytcat1) November 19, 2020

The backlash comes as a bevy of Democrat governors issue increasingly harsh Covid-19 restrictions ahead of Thanksgiving.

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