Article content continued

Photo by Stephanie Keith/Reuters

“We have the right to protect ourselves in this country — it’s a God-given right in this country,” said Vanessa Dallas, brandishing an American flag decorated with the language of the Second Amendment on its red and white stripes.

“We have rights, they’re trying to take them away from us, and it’s wrong. Wrong.”

Concerns that white supremacists and other far-right groups would show up to foment discord — notorious conspiracy theorist Alex Jones muscled his way through security at one point — had dissipated by midday, notwithstanding Gov. Ralph Northam’s decision last week to declare a state of emergency and enforce stringent controls on people entering the legislative grounds.

Those fears appeared rooted in an alleged plot, foiled last week by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to sow chaos and violence among the crowd by three men accused of being members of the neo-Nazi group the Base, including Canadian fugitive Patrik Mathews.

Photo by Jonathan Drake/Reuters

Mathews, a 27-year-old former combat engineer with 38 Canadian Brigade Group in Winnipeg who vanished last August, was arrested in the U.S. along with two U.S. citizens charged with harbouring him: Brian Mark Lemley, 33, and 19-year-old William Garfield Bilbrough. All three are scheduled to appear at bail hearings Wednesday.

Instead of violence and hatred, Monday’s protest appeared to bear out one of the primary arguments of the people who took part: that they are peaceful, passionate Americans who are simply out to defend their rights and defy those they believe want to take them away.