There's politics, and then there's gun politics: You cannot bring squirt guns to certain areas of the GOP convention in Tampa, Florida - safety reasons, you understand - but real guns? Those are perfectly fine as long as you have a concealed carry permit.

Tampa’s Mayor has produced a list of items that will be considered security threats during the week-long event.

The list runs from air pistols to water pistols and also includes items such as masks, plastic or metal pipes, hair spray, mace, placards and string more than six inches long.

The city is proposing a ‘clean zone’, which has drawn rallies about the wide restrictions on protesters over a large area, but “if we’d tried to regulate guns, it wouldn’t have worked,” said City Attorney Jim Shimberg.

The city cannot put actual firearms on a ‘security threat’ list because state law bans local governments from placing any restrictions whatsoever on the carrying of guns in public spaces.

Guns will be banned from the security zone the Secret Service will set up around the convention site, but not immediately outside that perimeter. So protesters cannot wield a piece of wood larger than a ruler but they can carry a concealed handgun.

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