You have to hand it to the Virginia Citizens’ Defense League: they know how to stay in the news. We wrote about them just last Friday, noting their opposition to NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s sting operations on Virginia gun shop operators. They’re in the Post again today — and once again, they’re exploring the blurry borders of Virginia’s gun laws.

This time it’s about an anti-Bloomberg raffle that the group wants to put on. The “Bloomberg Gun Giveaway” is designed to raise money for two gun merchants who are being sued by the mayor. Folks who spend over $100 in the shops are eligible for a drawing for a semiautomatic pistol, a rifle, and ammunition. The actual winners are set to be chosen at a meeting in Annandale tomorrow night.

Fairfax leaders aren’t too keen on this idea, however — or the fact that armed VCDL members have shown up at their offices to discuss the county’s opposition to the raffle. In fact, they’re trying to shut it down, based upon the giveaway being in violation of gambling laws.

We expressed sympathy for the VCDL’s anti-Bloomberg sentiments last week, but we’re already swinging back around. Don’t get us wrong: we thought Deadwood was awesome, too. But the VCDL’s incessant public firearm-brandishing is at the very least impolite. Not all of us are reassured by seeing that the guy behind us in line at Taco Bell is primed to make any potential assailants his Huckleberry. It’d be nice if the VCDL could go back to protecting us from bears and redcoats, and leave policing suburbia to the professional rent-a-cops.

Image by Flickr user e53, used under a Creative Commons license