Ralph Northam will never be satisfied until he has a total ban on all firearms even if it means confiscation of existing ones. And he could care less if gun owners were killed in the process. People like him are definitely a grave threat to the 2nd amendment.

VA Governor Northam and his well documented racist past is totally appalling, he has no right to point the finger at peaceful protesting gun owners

You realize that would be a tu quoque logical fallacy commonly known as "whataboutism"? And threats of violence to achieve political or social change - that's a dictionary definition of a terroristic threat.

Were there credible threats of violence? I don't know personally - allegedly they were made on social media or other places so I guess someone does. Doesn't mean they were credible but that's the problem, you just don't know and cops and government tend not to take threats lightly - just try tweeting threats, incredible ones, against the President and you'll probably find out.

Did the demonstration turn out peacefully - it certainly sounds like it from your and other reporting, even sources those would expect to be biased to say they weren't: [npr.org]

Was it threatening on the day? Well unfortunately showing up en-masse is inevitably going to be threatening to some people. The demonstration could actually have been carried out without weapons - but I get the point - pro-bike demonstrations generally involve a lot of bikes, pro-women's rights demonstrations generally involve a lot of women - and even without them some people would still feel threatened. "The government" always feels threatened when a lot of we-the-people show up to protest something, and that's mostly for other reasons (like government is so insecure now because it doesn't credibly represent the will of the people any more - and arguably never did - but that's another story). But that said it is your legal right to carry them in Virginia so I guess if the government of Virginia doesn't like that then they should address that issue legally and constitutionally, or learn not to be afraid of people doing what they are legally entitled to do and not give cause for people to challenge their authoritarian rule (which is most definitely a bi-partisan problem).

Listen, I'm not pro-gun - I come from a country where they are illegal, as are most items that can be used offensively and I'm not here to get into that argument. But I do realize that the second amendment and guns are here to stay in the US for the indefinite future. And even if 2A was overturned 18th Amendment style we'd still have guns and gun crime in the US for generations to come. Therefore I support the laws the land as-is and respect conscientious responsible gun owners (I know quite a few and have shot guns myself even though I don't own any) doing what the law entitles them to, and the government - as a manifestation of the will of we-the-people - doing whatever it takes to ensure that gun owners are conscientious responsible people and that collateral damage to innocent parties and self harm is minimized, if not eliminated.

Edit: PS. regarding what Carter said, and I quote from [twitter.com] - "Yesterday was implicit threat. The last two months have been a neverending torrent of explicit threats. You don't get credit for not murdering people after you spent 2 months threatening to."

That sounds disingenuous since from what I read the threats came from out of state orgs that didn't show up. Almost every movement has fringe activists - if they stayed away and the demonstration was peaceful I'd say it was a good thing. After all at a pro-life demonstration if no extremist anti-abortion doctor murderers show up and the demonstration is peaceful no one bats an eye. Normalization of pro-gun rights demonstrations as always peaceful and not violent should also be a good thing it helps reinforce the notion that gun ownership is there for the security of the state and the militia can be well-regulated without any tears.

So I think the authorities could have both made the point that threats of violence for political or social change by any orgs or individuals are terroristic threats (but duh that's just reading the dictionary), and compliment and thank the orgs and people who did participate for being peaceful and lawful. Case closed.