What happened recently in Charlottesville was one of those things no mayor wants to experience while in office. Demonstrations happen, sure, but the magnitude of what took place and the national attention focused on the city are the kinds of things most communities probably think they can live without.

But that doesn’t excuse Charlottesville Mayor Michael Signer’s request that the state essentially throw out the constitution when it’s convenient.

Charlottesville Mayor Michael Signer called on the Virginia state legislature on Friday to convene a special session to push for new laws that would give local governments power to decide the fates of their Confederate war memorials.

Signer, a Democrat, also asked that localities be able to suspend some gun laws after his city was besieged by violence during a white nationalist rally last weekend.

Signer issued a lengthy, six-page statement outlining what he views as the next steps for the progressive Southern college town reeling from the fallout of the violence, attention and outrage that has made Charlottesville the center of a national debate about Confederate history and white supremacy.

“Last weekend changed not only Charlottesville, but America,” Signer wrote. “While we are getting back on our feet, we are still traumatized. . . . But we will overcome this hatred.”

It’s unsurprising that Signer would ask to suspect gun laws despite there being zero loss of life due to firearms. After all, he’s a Democrat. That’s not a party particularly eaten up with Second Amendment advocates.

Of course, here lately, it’s not a party particularly eaten up with advocates for any other part of the Constitution either.

Signer appears to be an adherent to the “never let a good crisis go to waste” school of policy, and is trying to seize on this opportunity to gain some ground in the left’s battle against the Second Amendment. After all, such a win could help elevate him to higher office someday.

The sad thing is that I can actually see this happening. Signer will undoubtedly claim that his officers couldn’t stop the violence because of the militia—a group that claims it stopped violence plenty in its own right—and will hope that no one remembers that despite all the guns present, not a single shot was fired.

Not. A. One.

This is despite the fact that Antifa came to fight just like they always do. They came to fight when they stormed a free speech rally in Berkeley, CA. They did the same thing when President Trump spoke in Phoenix, AZ the other day, though the outcome of that one was just hilarious.

Signer doesn’t care about Antifa. He doesn’t care about a group of militant, angry anarcho-communists who exist solely to fight anyone they disagree with in the streets of any American city. He won’t get a pat on the head from his party for that.

Instead, he targets the one group of people present that literally no one can honestly say took part in any of the violence in Charlottesville: The people with guns.

No, he’s not alone in that, but being second doesn’t make his requests to the state legislature any more idiotic, wrongheaded, or unconstitutional.

Hat tip: The Truth About Guns