UPDATED 12:44 pm – Statement from AG Herring’s office:
Judge Kassabian has agreed with AG Herring and blocked the massive, potentially superspreader Nation’s Gun Show from operating at full capacity (upwards of 25,000 people) this weekend in Northern Virginia.
In his ruling, Judge Kassabian highlighted that our country is “in the throes of a national pandemic we have not seen in over 100 years” and that “a person can unwittingly spread a virus to others with devastating results based on its asymptomatic nature.” The Judge concluded by saying, “Finally, the injunction is not in the public interest. I find that it is in the private interest of the plaintiffs. To allow thousands to roam unchecked during the middle of the most serious health crisis this county has suffered in the past one hundred years is not in the public interest.”
Below is a statement you can attribute to AG Herring:
“This enormous gun show could have very quickly become a superspreader event and this win will help keep hundreds if not thousands of Virginians safe and healthy,” said Attorney General Herring. “I’m pleased that the judge agreed that putting thousands of Virginians at risk for contracting COVID just so people could buy and sell guns at a gun show was not worth it and could have led to disastrous consequences. If we have learned one thing over the past few months, its that we must all work together and abide by the COVID safety measures to keep ourselves, our families, and our loved ones healthy.”
In his ruling from the bench, the Judge said, “At worst, if the plaintiff is allowed to host this planned event, at an event where, just judging on what occurred in August, tens of thousands are allowed to gather over the course of three days and then leave, the risk of an unprecedented superspreader event infecting not only those persons but third parties that those persons come into contact with is substantial.”
Attorney General Herring has been incredibly successful in defending Virginia’s COVID safety measures in court, preventing further spread of this deadly virus and keeping Virginians and their families safe.
************************
More details to come, but for now…see here for background on this case, and below for Attorney General Mark Herring’s tweet a few minutes ago. And by the way, I’d want Herring to shut down a flower show or any other kind of show that puts hundreds of people together in the same space right now, given the COVID-19 crisis…
Sign up for the Blue Virginia weekly newsletter
