The red carpet is out at the National Rifle Association Convention Indianapolis Indiana. And red means Republican.
Every Republican presidential hopeful, rumored or officially announced a running, will be speaking at what is America’ premier firearms summit. The timing couldn’t be any worse.
Mike Pence grabbed the headlines when he called for the quick execution of mass shooters as a solution to gun violence.
“I’m tired of the senseless violence and loss of life that could be prevented if our leaders would support law enforcement, protect our schools, institutionalize the obviously mentally ill, and enact legislation that would ensure that anyone who engages in these heinous acts of mass violence meets their fate in months, not years,” Pence said.
On March 27, a shooter killed three children and three adults at a private Christian grade school in Nashville, Tennessee. Two weeks later, on April 10, a shooter killed five people and left another eight injured in Louisville, Kentucky.
There have been 150 mass shootings in the United States this year.
And the convention’s second day, April 15, will mark two years since one of the deadliest mass shootings in Indiana history: a shooter killed nine people and injured another seven at a FedEx facility in literally the exact same city as the NRA convention, Indianapolis.
In person, Donald Trump, Mike Pence, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, and Vivek Ramaswamy will all be speaking. By video, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott will make appearances.
The Republican Party has made gun rights a central piece of their ideology; any candidate seen as weak on the Second Amendment is unviable for the nomination. Even as the country is still wrought with shootings.
Pence, speaking in his home state, was met with boos from the crowd once he appeared on stage. Pence said that Democrats need to address the “very real problems of violent crime and mental health that are costing thousands of American lives every year.”
