Richmond Police officers patrol Shockoe Bottom in mid-March. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Gun violence has long bedeviled the city’s de facto nightclub district. But the Feb. 21 mass shooting at 18th and Main streets that left two dead and seven hospitalized featured a new twist: a proliferation of guns on full display.
Richmond Police Chief Rick Edwards says late-night partygoers in Shockoe Bottom are increasingly carrying weapons — openly.
“There’s been some high-profile incidents where we have seen people standing in Shockoe Bottom with AR-15s out, holding guns in their hands, with holsters, walking around,” Edwards says, quick to point out that it’s perfectly legal in Virginia. “I think for most of the commonwealth, it’s irrelevant. It doesn’t, you know, lead to gun violence. For us, we see it. ... We’ve had people get shot with guns in their hands, and they were open carrying earlier, and people misperceived the threat.”
Juan Braxton, a former nightclub manager in the Bottom who now works as a liaison between local businesses and the Richmond Police Department, says the problem has grown substantially worse in the last two or three years.
“These young boys are walking around with guns open, like the Wild West,” Braxton says, explaining that firearms now symbolize status: “Somewhere, the culture shifted. People are buying new guns, building them out, putting scopes and lasers on them — and carrying them around in Shockoe Bottom.”
Virginia is one of 47 states that allows citizens to openly carry firearms in public. Typically, though, open carry is more popular in rural communities, says David Yamane, a sociology professor specializing in gun culture at Wake Forest University and the author of “Gun Curious: A Liberal Professor’s Surprising Journey Inside America’s Gun Culture.”
“Most of the people who carry concealed weapons or open carry look at this from a self-defense standpoint, or political posturing,” Yamane says. “People openly carrying firearms in commercial areas is interesting. That sounds unique to me.”
Restricting guns in public spaces isn’t easy, particularly in Southern states, and Edwards sees no legislative solution on the horizon. But he does have a message for those who feel the need to carry a gun openly, especially assault rifles like the AR-15.
“If you’re bringing an AR-15 to a social setting, that should be a clue that you shouldn’t come,” Edwards says.
