Petition for open carry of guns at the GOP convention might be a hoax

That petition demanding that Republicans be allowed to take their guns to the convention in Cleveland in July?

It might be a hoax.

And that might be relief for people who, when they considered having firearms at a potentially divided convention, wondered: What could possibly go wrong?

The origin of the petition, signed so far by nearly 45,000 people, is up for debate. Posted on the website Change.org, it points out that even though Ohio is an open-carry state, the convention site in July, Quickens Loan Arena, “strictly forbids the carry of firearms on their premises.

“This is a direct affront to the Second Amendment and puts all attendees at risk.”

The Akron Beacon Journal reported that it couldn’t find the name of the group sponsoring the petition — Americans For Responsible Open Carry — anywhere else online.

On Sunday, the website Cnet pronounced that thousands of people have been had. The petition is satire created by a blog called Hyperationalist, which announced the petition on its blog last week.

“It just doesn’t seem right that thousands of patriotic Republican good guys should be left totally unprotected by whatever bad guys might wish to do them harm,” the Hyperationalist wrote.

“I mean forgodsake people, ISIS could show up to take out everybody in and around that building and they’d be sitting ducks. Sitting ducks, I tell you! There might even be a bad egg or two among the delegates.”

Cnet says it’s unclear how many people signed the petition thinking that it was real “and how many signed the petition because they enjoyed the humorous intent. It’s evident, though, that some of the more rightward-inclined took it for real.

“The convention doesn’t promise to be a unifying spectacle. With Donald Trump perhaps not gaining enough delegates to secure the nomination outright, rancor is likely.

“Now that there are more than six times as many, could the convention turn into a celebration of gun culture, despite this being satire? After all, a hyper-rationalist would surely argue that it’s odd for an organization so committed to the Second Amendment to ban guns at its hearth.

“The spectacle of candidates brandishing guns on the stage would be enticing, no doubt, for media companies as well as for many of the Republican faithful.”

Only one Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, had commented on the petition. He told ABC’s “This Week” that he had not seen the petition but wanted “to read the fine print.”

Others who had seen it, though, caught the whiff of satire and dubbed it epic trolling.

This story was originally published March 28, 2016 at 4:48 PM with the headline "Petition for open carry of guns at the GOP convention might be a hoax."