Petition Created To Allow Guns at Ohio’s Republican Convention

The convention will be held at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. Under current law, the arena prohibits weapons of any kind.

The petition is on Change.org and there is very little information in the creator’s profile. The petition has more than 50,000 supporters.

The creator of petition claims that prohibiting weapons violates the Second Amendment and puts attendees at risk.

“We are all too familiar with the mass carnage that can occur when citizens are denied their basic God-given rights to carry handguns or assault weapons in public,” the petition reads.

“Policies of the Quicken Loans Arena do not supersede the rights given to us by our Creator in the U.S. Constitution,” the petition reads.

According to Communities Digital News, some are concerned that the assembly of high-level Republican leaders might draw terrorist attention. This argument hasn’t won over the GOP considering the fact they’ve refused to allow weapons at the convention in the past, including the 2012 convention in Tampa; firearms were banned by the Secret Service at the Republican convention that year.

The author of that article reports that Cleveland police are getting ready to buy 2,000 sets of riot gear as the convention approaches. The City of Cleveland has a $50 million budget off a federal security grant.

Whether the petition will make a difference in the open carry ban at the arena remains to be seen. If violence breaks out during the convention and attendees are unable to defend themselves due to the ban, the Republican party may find itself in a precarious situation indeed.

The petition, which is receiving a considerable amount of recent attention, calls for five points of action.

1. Quicken Loans Arena suspend their weapons ban for the convention.
2. The NRA condemn the gun free zone loophole in Ohio law.
3. Ohio Governor John Kasich use his power to override the arena’s weapons ban.
4. Reince Priebus and the Republican National Committee explain why an arena with such a ban was chosen for the event.
5. All Republican candidates for President speak out against the arena’s weapons ban.

Whether the Republican candidates decide to respond remains to be seen. The July date leaves sufficient time for a reaction, but the regulations of such a widely used property may not be altered so easily.

You can find the petition here on Change.org.