Last night, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring spoke at Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church about anti-Semitism being “at an all-time height here in the US,” and about “the anti-hate legislation he is seeking, for the fourth year in a row, to introduce.” According to AG Herring, “our trajectory has always been toward inclusion and equality…no one in Virginia should be singled out for abuse, harassment, discrimination or violence.” Herring talked about the upsurge in “hate and white supremacist violence,” with hate crimes in Virginia rising about 31% over the past six years. Herring added, “It is well past time for us to acknowledge the real, growing and deadly threat posed by hate and white supremacist violence,” including in Virginia, and to not tolerate it.
According to Herring, the Virginia General Assembly needs to act, by doing things like updating Virginia’s definition of a hate crime, empowering the Attorney General to prosecute hate crimes, prohibiting paramilitary activity, tougher sentences for domestic terrorism, authorizing communities to ban firearms at permitted events, barring people convicted of a hate crime from possessing a firearm, etc.
Click on the following image for the video, which for whatever reason can’t be embedded directly in websites.
Sign up for the Blue Virginia weekly newsletter
