No guns at Republican convention: Secret Service saves GOP from further embarrassment

Derailing a petition drive by ultraconservative Republicans, the Secret Service has ruled that those attending the GOP national convention this summer will not be allowed to carry guns within the venue.
The prospect of pistols present at a hotly contested convention with Donald Trump striving to win the GOP nomination generated disbelief among some non-gun owners across the country.
Republicans who signed the 43,000-signature petition were obviously sucked into a bit of ideological delusion, as the Secret Service screens people for weapons at every presidential campaign stop. The idea that the top three GOP candidates would appear in a single setting without Secret Service protection was ludicrous.
According to The Hill, Secret Service spokesman Robert Hoback said in a statement that “only authorized law enforcement personnel” working with the feds will be allowed to carry firearms inside the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.
“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,” Hoback wrote in an email.
The Secret Service cited federal law that allows the agency to prevent firearms from being carried into venues with “protectees” present, even in open-carry states.
The anonymous author of the online petition has complained that, while Ohio is an open-carry state, Quicken Loans Arena policy forbids weapons of any kind to be carried into the facility.
“This is a direct affront to the Second Amendment and puts all attendees at risk,” the petition reads.
Some Republicans viewed the petition as an attempt to prevent a potential ISIS attack – though no such organized terrorist attack on a heavily attended, prime target has occurred in the U.S. since 9/11.
But some evidence suggests that Democrats also signed the petition in an attempt to embarrass Republicans, as the July confab is expected to emerge as the most heated party convention in decades.
Pistols on hips would have made the tension far more intense.