Repost from U.S. News
NRA Convention Bans Guns To Protect Mike Pence. Parkland Survivors’ Jaws Drop
Parkland teens are calling out the gun group for hypocrisy.
By Mary Papenfuss, 04/28/2018 09:23 pm ETGuns will be barred during Vice President Mike Pence’s appearance at an upcoming National Rifle Association convention to protect his safety — prompting survivors of the Parkland school shooting in Florida to wonder why the gun group won’t agree to gun restrictions elsewhere to protect children.
Those attending the NRA Leadership Conference in Dallas are on notice that no firearms or “weapons of any kind,” or ammunition, will be allowed in the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center “prior to and during” Pence’s appearance on May 4. The NRA posted the restrictions ― a requirement of the Secret Service ― on a website announcing the conference.
“There will be no storage for firearms,” the NRA says in the announcement. Knife Rights, a knife advocacy group, will provide “complimentary storage” for knives, the NRA adds.
Teens who survived the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, where 17 people were killed, are wondering why the NRA fiercely resists extending the same safety considerations to other areas to safeguard children. The NRA wants “guns everywhere” when it comes to kids, tweeted Matt Deitsch, a Parkland student who helped organize the March for Our Lives rally for stricter gun laws in Washington.
The NRA urges more guns in schools and suggests teachers be armed. President Donald Trump, who agrees with the gun group, boasted that an armed teacher could have “shot the hell out of” the Parkland gunman. An armed deputy assigned to the school failed to respond to the shooter and stayed outside the building.
Cameron Kasky, another Parkland student who has become a gun control activist, lashed the NRA as a ridiculous “parody of itself.”
Fred Guttenberg, father of 14-year-old Parkland victim Jaime Guttenberg, also mocked the NRA convention gun ban: “I thought giving everyone a gun was to enhance safety,” he wrote on Twitter.