I worry about what may happen at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July.
I worry for a lot of reasons. Donald Trump is one; Ted Cruz is another. But I worry as well because thanks to the Secret Service, the Quicken Loans Arena where the convention will be held is going to be a gun-free zone -- no private firearms allowed. As a petition filed at Change.org points out, that makes the 50,000 delegates, media personnel, workers, volunteers and other attendees deeply vulnerable to attack.
The anonymous author of the petition describes the stakes well (emphasis original):
Cleveland, Ohio is consistently ranked as one of the top ten most dangerous cities in America. By forcing attendees to leave their firearms at home, the RNC and Quicken Loans Arena are putting tens of thousands of people at risk both inside and outside of the convention site.
This doesn't even begin to factor in the possibility of an ISIS terrorist attack on the arena during the convention. Without the right to protect themselves, those at the Quicken Loans Arena will be sitting ducks, utterly helpless against evil-doers, criminals or others who wish to threaten the American way of life."
The petition goes on to quote the remaining GOP presidential candidates about the terrible dangers created by gun-free zones, or as Trump describes such areas, "bait." As Ted Cruz warns, "if you're a lunatic, ain't nothing better then having a bunch of targets you know that are going to be unarmed." That's important, because there's every reason to believe that lunatics will be in attendance at that event.
So as of Tuesday morning, more than 50,000 concerned, patriotic Americans had signed the petition in favor of overturning the Quicken Loans policy and allowing loaded firearms into the convention area. They clearly believe that if something goes down in Cleveland -- for example, if riots break out on the convention floor, as Trump has suggested -- it would be downright cruel to deny convention attendees their constitutional right to self-defense.
Nonetheless, that is what the Secret Service has done. In direct contradiction to the Second Amendment, they have decreed that only the government will be allowed to have guns at the convention, and that private citizens who attempt to exercise their rights by bringing firearms into the facility will be arrested. Even Trump himself -- a concealed-weapons permit holder -- would be denied the right to a weapon, and if a mild-mannered, even-tempered man like that can be denied a weapon, how can we possibly make this country great again?
Now, I'm no Alex Jones or Glenn Beck, with their uncanny ability to detect conspiracies that the less-prescient of us can't see, but doesn't that start your spidey-sense a-tingling? Think of it this way: If you were Barack Hussein Obama, and if you wanted to overthrow the Constitution and name yourself dictator as your first major step toward imposing Sharia law, what better way to begin the coup than to lure thousands of the nation's top conservatives to gather in one place, then make sure that they are disarmed so they could be safely rounded up by federal "jackbooted thugs"?
I'm not saying that's what he's planning, necessarily. I'm just asking the question ....
Besides, if guns are a necessary safety enhancement on college campuses, as Georgia Republicans insist, then surely the sober-minded, rational and mature Americans who will go to Cleveland to choose between Trump and Cruz deserve that same degree of safety.
Right?
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