Nearly 20,000 people have signed a petition to allow firearms inside the Republican National Convention being held in Cleveland in July.
Firearms are currently not permitted inside the Quicken Loans Arena, known as "the Q," where the gathering will take place.
The petition, posted Monday on Change.org, only sought 5,000 signatures but has since quadrupled. It was posted by an author identified only as "N.A." from Cleveland, but the user profile appears to have been deleted from the website.
It was not clear whether the person posting the petition was backing the proposal or attempting to put the party, which strongly backs gun rights, in an awkward position.
Among the petition's five goals, it calls upon Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, to mount a "concerted effort to use his executive authority to override the "gun-free zone" loophole being exploited by the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio."
The name of the group purportedly behind the effort — Americans for Responsible Open Carry — does not appear anywhere else online and accepts online message only from networked supporters, the Akron Beacon Journal reported.
The Ohio Republican Party said it was not aware of the petition, the Journal reported, nor was the host committee overseeing the convention, although it noted that the Secret Service, in conjunction with Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, state and federal authorities, is handling security for the event.
“They are coordinating and will be continuously refining security plans leading up to the national convention,” said Alee Lockman, a spokesperson for the Republican National Convention, the Journal says.
In 2012, firearms were banned by the Secret Service at the Republican convention in Tampa.
The Journal says the National Rifle Association declined to comment on the petition.
The petition states:
"This is a direct affront to the Second Amendment and puts all attendees at risk. As the National Rifle Association has made clear, "gun-free zones" such as the Quicken Loans Arena are "the worst and most dangerous of all lies." The NRA, our leading defender of gun rights, has also correctly pointed out that "gun free zones... tell every insane killer in America... (the) safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk."
The petition also claims that forcing attendees to leave firearms at home puts everyone in attendance at risk. It also notes the convention could be a potential target for an attack.
Without the right to protect themselves, those at the Quicken Loans Arena will be sitting ducks, utterly helpless against evil-doers, criminals or others who wish to threaten the American way of life.
