Democratic and Republican leaders denounced gun rights supporters for hanging an effigy of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear from a tree outside the state capitol building during a Memorial Day weekend demonstration.
The symbolic lynching occurred on Sunday at a rally by gun rights groups that was initially organized to celebrate Second Amendment freedoms to bear arms. But as the rally in Frankfort went on, it turned into a protest against Beshear’s coronavirus-prompted stay-at-home orders.
As country singer Lee Greenwood’s hit song “God Bless the U.S.A.” played in the background, a demonstrator wearing camouflage pants and what appeared to be holstered handgun strung a rope over a tree limb and with the help of another man hoisted the effigy bearing a picture of Beshear and a handwritten sign tacked to it reading, “Sec Semper Tyrannis,” a Latin phrase meaning “Thus always to tyrants.”
