In yet another shining example of how mortifyingly tone-deaf any and all Republicans are, the GOP of Florida has once again stepped forward to offer their services as poster children for bad taste and stone-hearted cruelty.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, the Florida Republican Party’s regional field director sent out an email on Thursday asking for volunteers for a voter registration drive to take place at a gun show in Pembroke Pines on Saturday and Sunday, before the bodies of the mass shooting victims from California, Texas, and Ohio are even cold.
The email told supporters that it was “…a great opportunity to engage the community and promote the values that make this country strong, prosperous, safe and great!” Because tying civic duty to guns is always a great idea, as every Trump-supporting white nationalist will tell you.
The thing is, this is purposely cruel. A gun show taking place as normal, even following a mass shooting (or a trio of mass shootings) is simple capitalism. Turning that gun show into a voter registration drive is deliberately insensitive to the victims of these tragedies and their families.
And of course, Pembroke Pines is roughly half an hour from Parkland, the site of the deadlier-than-Columbine shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine’s Day 2018.
City leaders do not want the GOP to hold the drive — or even the gun show — at the Charles Dodge City Center, which is directly adjacent to City Hall. They fear lawsuits, however, if they were to cancel the contract.
State Party Chair Joe Gruters told the press the GOP had never considered canceling the gun show even for a moment:
We can’t let a sick, deranged individual like that shooter impact the normal democratic process. We’re going to target law abiding citizens and hopefully we’ll pick up some new registrations there. We’re not going to let unfortunate incidents that are incredibly sad and terrible effect our efforts.”
Gruters is a Senator in the state legislature. He’s also very bad at describing the horror of a mass shooting if he thinks they’re merely “unfortunate” and “incredibly sad.”
Featured image via Flickr
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