【Dear Utol (2025): Itch Follows Episode 23】

The Dear Utol (2025): Itch Follows Episode 23National Rifle Association is again incurring the wrath of the survivors of the Parkland school shooting. They've announced that guns will be banned at an upcoming convention because Vice President Mike Pence will be in attendance.

The NRA says that it was the U.S. Secret Service who demanded the gun ban due to Pence's appearance at the conference, which kicks off Friday, May 4. (The ban was implemented before the White House announced on Monday morning that President Trump would also attend.)

In a statement posted to the conference's page, the NRA said:

Due to the attendance of the Vice President of the United States, the U.S. Secret Service will be responsible for event security at the NRA-ILA Leadership Forum.  As a result, firearms and firearm accessories, knives or weapons of any kind will be prohibited in the forum prior to and during his attendance

The move isn't without precedence, either. The same ban was put in place before Trump's appearance at the 2017 NRA convention in Atlanta.

But that didn't stop a few Parkland survivors from calling out the NRA, which has argued against "gun-free zones" in the past. Responses have come from student Cameron Kasky and Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was killed in the shooting.

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March For Our Lives strategist and MSD grad Matt Deitsch, whose siblings Ryan and Samantha are survivors of the shooting, chimed in as well.

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Shooting survivor David Hogg also took the Trump appearance as a chance to hit both the president and the NRA for connections to Russia.

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Other than during Pence's appearance (and, presumably, Trump's appearance), firearms willbe allowed at the rest of the NRA convention and at the hotel. We've reached out to the NRA for further statements and to confirm the gun ban at Trump's appearance.

Pence is slated to speak on Friday afternoon but no time has been announced for Trump's address, which we all know will go smoothly and not feature any kind of incendiary rhetoric at all because Trump is the most stable of geniuses.

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