Today, Leonard Pitts, Jr. wrote in The National Memo, “So why not guns inside the Republican National
Convention? If it's okay to carry guns in schools, bars and churches, then why
not in Cleveland? If Republicans in Iowa think blind people should have guns
and Republicans in Alabama think little kids should have real guns, then why
not all those Trump delegates?”
An NRA-sponsored petition to allow delegates to carry guns
at the GOP convention was stomped flat by the Secret Service when it put its
foot down hard on the suggestion. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hades of
approval and I doubt if anyone really expected a different outcome. Still, the
NRA and its 50,000 petitioners must have had a screw or two loose to even
suggest it. The NRA argument was that Cleveland is ranked as one of the most dangerous
cities in America and since “gun-free zones” are “the worst and most dangerous
of all lies,” there would be minimal risk to some insane killer attempting to
wreak maximum harm at the Convention if only the Secret Service and police were
armed. They argued that if delegates were allowed to arm themselves, no person would
attempt a shooting at the Convention. Maybe no person in his right mind would,
but some insane killer wanting to shoot up the place wouldn’t let an army of
armed delegates stop him from trying. Can you imagine the amount of collateral
damage inflicted during what would probably go into the Guinness Book of World
Records as the world’s largest indoor shootout? I don’t want to even think
about it.
