Former President Donald Trump hopes to be back in the Oval Office come January 2025. As such, he’s on the campaign trail, talking to people and doing those whole shaking hands and kissing babies thing.

However, a recent Republican dinner in Michigan has riled a lot of people up.

It’s not because Trump said or did anything controversial, but because of something else. You see, the event was gun-free.

People who gathered to see Donald Trump speak at a Lincoln Day dinner at a conference center in Novi, Michigan, on Sunday, were not allowed to bring their firearms.

The event, hosted by Oakland County Republican Party, listed guns and “weapons of any kind” among items prohibited from the sold-out event, despite the local party espousing the belief that keeping and bearing arms was “a natural inalienable right.”

Camera footage of the entrance to the event, posted on Twitter on Monday, showed a queue for metal detector machines and bags being checked by what appear to be homeland security agents. The video has been viewed 2.2 million times as of 5:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday.

The former president has continued to tout his support for the Second Amendment, writing on his 2024 campaign website that he would “always defend” the right to bear arms.

…

While some social media users argued that the ban on guns was hypocritical, others said that the rule had likely been enforced by Trump’s Secret Service detail or due to federal laws prohibiting guns from certain public spaces, such as schools and airports.

Except, there’s not any hypocrisy at work.

Look, if you want to hit Trump for claiming to be pro-Second Amendment while directing the ATF to initiate a bump stock ban, that’s one thing. I get the arguments defending it from the right, but that’s a legitimate point of criticism for a president who vows to defend the right to keep and bear arms.

But the security at an event like this isn’t valid.

I don’t know if the facility itself is gun-free or not and, frankly, I don’t care to look. That’s because I do know that the Secret Service isn’t going to care one bit about whether Trump is pro-gun or not. They’re simply not going to allow any guns into that room with a former president–especially one as divisive as Trump–if they can possibly prevent it.

They’d prefer that the only guns in that room belong to their agents and other law enforcement, and I wouldn’t swear to them being fine with local police having firearms that close to someone like Trump, if we’re being completely honest here.

Moreover, Trump can’t make them allow guns in there. While the Secret Service may consider what a protectee wants, they’re not going to do whatever they’re told. They’ve long held that guns aren’t allowed where a president or former president is speaking and we’re not going to change their minds.

Still have a problem with that? Talk to the Secret Service then, because this isn’t on Trump.