Boogaloo Bois spokesman Mike Dunn was unconstitutionally arrested this past week for openly carrying a firearm at a public park in Newport News, Virginia. Dunn, a Marine Corps veteran, arrived outside an event hosted by Libertarian Vice Presidential candidate Spike Cohen with a holstered pistol on his belt. Dunn wore the gun specifically to protest a local ordinance approved last week by Virginia Governor Ralph Northam. That ordinance banned open carry in public parks. Realizing that the ordinance was unconstitutional, Dunn decided to open carry anyway to see if local law enforcement would choose to honor their oath to the constitution or enforce an unconstitutional law. They chose to enforce the unconstitutional law.
We applaud Mike Dunn for having the courage to stand up for what he believes in. By protesting the law he now has standing to challenge it in a court of law as part of his criminal defense. If he is represented by court appointed counsel then the state will have to pay for it all. By getting arrested he is now entitled to a lawyer. Before his arrest, he would have had to hire an attorney himself and file a lawsuit seeking to overturn the law. He would have had standing without being arrested as someone that wanted to open carry, but now he has an absolute right to counsel whether he can afford it or not. Dunn is just 20 years old and probably does not have the financial resources to fund the type of legal challenge needed to overturn the law by himself. Hopefully his arrest will lead to a successful challenge to an unconstitutional law before more people are arrested for exercising their 2nd Amendment rights in public parks in Virginia.
Dunn's arrest was caught on camera in the video below. Dunn was just standing in a public place with a holstered pistol on his right hip; two cops approached him and asked that he put the gun in his car; Dunn questioned them about their oath to defend the constitution to which they admitted that they had sworn an oath to protect and defend the constitution of the United States; the officers argued that the law was not unconstitutional and that is why they were enforcing it; then Dunn was arrested. While handcuffed Dunn said, "this is what tyranny looks like."
The names of the arresting officers are not known to us at this time.