Today, protesters at a pro-gun rally at the Kentucky Capitol hung Gov. Andy Beshear in effigy. It's not the first time there have been threats against the governor during the COVID-19 crisis.

Written on "Beshear's" chest are the words "Sic semper tyrannis," or "thus always to tyrants," the words shouted by John Wilkes Booth as he leapt from Abraham Lincoln's box and onto the stage at Ford's Theater after delivering a fatal shot to the president's head.

A few weeks ago, a lawyer was charged with making threatening remarks on social media. He had a history of violence, having once fired a bolt from a cross bow into a neighbor's garage.

Republicans are falling all over themselves to condemn those who hung the likeness of Beshear on the back lawn of the Capitol. As well they should. They are talking about threats of violence having no place in political discourse in Kentucky. And they are right.

But here's a question for all members of the GOP and the pro-gun wing of the Democratic Party in Kentucky -- If this threat of violence bothers you so much, why do you allow the continuing threats of violence in the Kentucky Capitol and in government buildings across Kentucky?

Why do you continue to allow people to carry guns in these buildings? Why do you continue to allow people carrying AR-15s and AK-47s into city halls across Kentucky?

These people who are carrying assault weapons slung across their bodies, wearing flak jackets and tactical gear, camouflage and army boots, and walking around government grounds are doing it simply to intimidate, to threaten.

As long as you allow them to do this, you are not only allowing threats of violence against our government, you are encouraging it.
You can stop it. But you won't.

Because beneath it all, you crave these people's votes more than you believe that violence and threats of it have no place in our state.
You are complicit. It could have been you hoisting the governor into that tree.