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Pro-State's Rights Protesters Exercise Open Carry And Defy Social Distance

Jason deBruyn/WUNC

A small group, mostly armed, walked the streets of downtown Raleigh Saturday in support of their Second Amendment rights. 

The group — known as members of a Facebook page called Blue Igloo — went viral when The News & Observer photographer Travis Long tweeted photos of a few of them placing orders at a local Subway restaurant, while toting military-grade firearms.

These are not the only protests taking place during the coronavirus lockdown. A much larger, unarmed group called ReOpen NC has been gathering at the governor’s mansion for several weeks to urge the state legislature to reopen businesses and restart the economy. Host Frank Stasio talks to WUNC reporter Jason DeBruyn about both recurring public actions. 

Stacia L. Brown is a writer and audio storyteller who has worked in public media since 2016, when she partnered with the Association of Independents in Radio and Baltimore's WEAA 88.9 to create The Rise of Charm City, a narrative podcast that centered community oral histories. She has worked for WAMU’s daily news radio program, 1A, as well as WUNC’s The State of Things. Stacia was a producer for WUNC's award-winning series, Great Grief with Nnenna Freelon and a co-creator of the station's first children's literacy podcast, The Story Stables. She served as a senior producer for two Ten Percent Happier podcasts, Childproof and More Than a Feeling. In early 2023, she was interim executive producer for WNYC’s The Takeaway.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
Jason deBruyn is WUNC's Supervising Editor for Digital News, a position he took in 2024. He has been in the WUNC newsroom since 2016 as a reporter.
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