The chairman of a Virginia Republican organization reportedly protested outside the home of a Democratic state delegate with a semiautomatic rifle in a move the lawmaker says was meant to intimidate him.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Brandon Howard, chairman of the Hopewell, Va., Republican Party, stood outside the home of Democratic Del. Mark Levine with a semiautomatic rifle.

“He stood outside my kitchen window for a couple hours or so,” Levine said. “He made it very clear that I was just to be the first [lawmaker targeted], that he could find all of our homes. ... That we should kiss our wives goodbye, kiss our husbands goodbye, kiss our children goodbye because he would use the business end of his gun.”

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The Post noted that the protest came before Virginia Democrats suffered a legislative defeat earlier this week, when a bill to ban semiautomatic assault weapons failed in committee.

Howard, however, denied that he was attempting to intimidate Levine in a statement to the Post, telling the newspaper that he was "there to peacefully protest."

Levine, he said, is an “enemy of the Constitution. And we’re making it known that we will not stand by and allow him to do it.”

“What’s not appropriate is to come to my house with a loaded gun,” Levine said in a speech in the Virginia legislature addressing the incident. “That will not work, that will never work with me, and I suggest it will never work with any member of this body. Don’t do it.”

Howard is running for city council in Hopewell, and reportedly defended his actions in a video posted to his personal Facebook page.

“He wants to send armed men to our house with the intent to confiscate, arrest and possibly even kill us,” he said. “So we’re going to tell Mark Levine, we know where you live. And armed citizens of the commonwealth are going to come to your house. To your doorstep.”