Republican heavyweights are still set to speak at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting this weekend in Houston, days after 19 children and two adults were killed in a school shooting Tuesday. The convention is set to take place between Thursday and Sunday at the George R. Brown Convention Center, around 270 miles from Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where the mass shooting unfolded. The NRA event website describes the Texas meeting as hosting “patriots for a freedom-filled weekend for the entire family as we celebrate Freedom, Firearms, and the Second Amendment!” Despite the rhetoric, attendees will be prohibited from bringing their own firearms to Trump’s forum on Friday afternoon as per a security notice from the Secret Service, who will be present to protect the former president. Critics have called for the convention to be canceled in the wake of the worst school massacre since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut in 2012. “Gov. Abbott, if you have any decency, you will immediately withdraw from this weekend’s NRA convention and urge them to hold it anywhere but Texas,” Abbott’s gubernatorial election rival Beto O’Rourke tweeted Wednesday.
