This year’s Republican National Convention figures to be the most contentious GOP gathering in a generation. The party is sharply divided between those who see Donald Trump as Ronald Reagan, only smuttier, and those who see him as a Mussolini, only more short-fingered. Trump has already predicted that there will be riots if things don’t go his way. The city of Cleveland has purchased 2,000 sets of crowd-control gear. Meanwhile, ISIS-inspired terrorists continue to take innocent lives all across the world and knockout-gamers hide in the shadows of every American city. And yet President Obama’s Secret Service has decided to put RNC attendees in even greater danger: On Monday night, the agency announced that it would not allow any civilians to exercise their Second Amendment rights inside Quicken Loans Arena, turning the convention into a perilous gun-free zone.
“Only authorized law enforcement personnel working in conjunction with the Secret Service for a particular event may carry a firearm inside of the protected site,” Secret Service spokesperson Kevin Dye told NBC News in an emailed statement. “Individuals determined to be carrying firearms will not be allowed past a predetermined outer perimeter checkpoint, regardless of whether they possess a ticket to the event.”
The announcement came after 46,000 patriots (and, apparently, some irony-loving liberals) signed a Change.org petition calling on Quicken Loans Arena to “RECOGNIZE OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO OPEN CARRY FIREARMS AT THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION.” The petition highlighted the Republican presidential field’s staunch opposition to gun-free zones.
Donald Trump said “I will get rid of gun-free zones on schools—you have—and on military bases on my first day. It gets signed my first day…you know what a gun-free zone is to a sicko? That’s bait.” (Jan. 8. 2016)
Ted Cruz has accurately pointed out “shooting after shooting after shooting happens in so called gun-free zones.” He continued, “look, if you’re a lunatic ain’t nothing better then having a bunch of targets you know that are going to be unarmed.” (Dec. 4, 2015)
And Ohio Governor John Kasich has been a leader in this movement to eliminate deadly “gun-free zones” starting with his brave decision to fight the Democrats and end “gun-free zones” at National Guard facilities in Ohio. (Dec. 18, 2015)
Shockingly, CBS News reports that this petition wasn’t started by a heartfelt libertarian but, rather, by a smug Constitution-hater who thought he was being clever.
“If they can’t live in accordance with the policies they impose upon us, they owe us that rational conversation,” Jim, a.k.a. the “Hyperationalist,” told CBS. “I thought, ‘How do we square how unsafe they’re going to be with what they say makes them safe?’”
Jim may be a condescending gun-control-lover, but at least he started an important conversation about how the Obama administration is forcing the Republican Party to endanger its own supporters. Irony has its uses.
