Secret Service bans guns during Trump address at NRA annual conference in Houston

The Secret Service announced it will be banning guns as well as other objects during a scheduled address by former president Donald Trump this weekend at the National Rifle Association event.

The NRA’s annual convention will be held in Houston, Texas this weekend on the heels of an elementary school massacre a few hours away in Uvalde that left 21 people dead, including 19 small children, on Wednesday.

There are growing calls for the conference to be canceled, moved, or postponed out of respect for the victims of the Robb Elementary School shooting and their families, but the NRA is, so far, pressing on with the event, which will feature Donald Trump as a speaker on Friday.

The Secret Service has announced it will ban firearms during Trump’s speech, as well as firearms accessories and knives, ammunition, laser pointers, pepper spray, toy guns, backpacks and other items. In spite of Texas being an open carry state, the Secret Service will be taking charge of the venue during Trump’s appearance and will have final say over security in that time frame, including scanning attendees with metal detector wands.

The Secret Service previously banned guns during an address by then-vice president Mike Pence at an NRA event in 2018 in Dallas. Trump’s address will take place Friday at George R. Brown Convention Center. The NRA has announced to attendees there will be nowhere to store firearms during Trump’s speech, but guns are allowed at the conference at other events.

The conference will be the first time the NRA has held the annual event since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The conference has previously come under fire for being held in the wake of a school shooting in the same state as the conference.

In 1999 the organization was called to cancel its conference in Denver the week after the Columbine High School shooting, but the NRA ultimately decided to move ahead with the event.