Trump, the RNC, and Open Carry.

Is Cleveland Ready?

Olympus has fallen, London has fallen, and this July the city of Cleveland may find itself center stage in its own theatrical nightmare as the 2016 Republican National Convention comes to town. When Cleveland was awarded the right to host the convention in 2015 the city officials certainly must have expected a large security apparatus. However the amount of civil unrest associated with the 2016 Presidential campaign might be cause for concern to local, state, and federal officials. NPR is reporting that the Cleveland Police Department is seeking to purchase 2,000 sets of riot gear and extendable batons for their officers in preparation for protests associated with the convention. The city of Cleveland received a $50 million dollar grant to provide support for the upcoming event. That’s a defense that not even Lebron can score on!

If Cleveland officials didn’t have enough to worry about, a recent article published by CNN described a petition listed on Change.org requesting the right for attendees to “open carry” firearms inside the Quicken Loan Arena during the event. A link to the Change.org petition can be found below. Ohio is an “open carry” state and no permit is required to carry firearms in public with some specific exceptions. One of those exceptions is a ban on firearms inside private arenas like the Quicken Loan Arena. All three remaining Republican Presidential candidates were specifically named in the petition and were applauded for their support for the abolishment of “gun free” zones. The petition describes Cleveland as consistently one of the ten most dangerous cities in the country and the restriction as an “egregious affront” to the Second Amendement. According to the FBI’s 2013 crime statistics, Cleveland is ranked as the 5th most dangerous big city in the United States. Among other things, the petition asks Ohio Governor and Republican Presidential candidate John Kasich to intercede and exert his executive power on this issue.

Regardless of the pending petition, the Republican National Convention has been designated as a National Special Security Event by the Department of Homeland Security and numerous local, state, and federal agencies have been working on security planning for the event for months. The United States Secret Service, the lead security planning agency, quickly addressed the petition issue with a media release. Secret Service spokesman announced on ABC News that firearms will not be allowed within an outer security perimeter and that federal law allows the restriction of firearms even in states with “open carry” laws. It appears that the petition might be an academic exercise, but nothing is certain in this election cycle.

What is not an academic exercise is the activation of the entire homeland security enterprise to prepare for potential civil and criminal unrest at both the Republican National Convention in Cleveland and the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. The United States has a long history of relatively peaceful transitions of power, but those transitions came with a few bruises along the way. A low point in convention security was the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois. This convention was marred by thousands of anti-war protestors clashing with the Chicago Police Department, which was captured on national television for the first time. Considering the politically-charged nature of the primary season up to this point, it seems like investments in strategic planning and security resources are a wise investment. No matter who wins the Republican nomination, this summer could be a hot one in Cleveland!!

Submitted by team Home Sweet Homeland

For additional information on articles referenced in this content, please see the below links:

http://www.npr.org/2016/03/25/471728957/hold-cleveland-readies-for-protests-at-this-summer-s-gop-convention

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/26/politics/guns-petition-republican-national-convention/index.html

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/tens-of-thousands-sign-petition-to-allow-open-carry-of-guns-at-rnc-20160328

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/secret-service-guns-gop-convention-petition-open-carry/story?id=37981517

https://www.change.org/p/quicken-loans-arena-allow-open-carry-of-firearms-at-the-quicken-loans-arena-during-the-rnc-convention-in-july-2