Gay Bars in Nashville Receive pro-Trump Fliers With Image of Assault Rifle

A few gay bars in Nashville, Tennessee reportedly received fliers with images of assault rifles and President Donald Trump, with some bar owners believing the fliers are some kind of threat.

There have been at least four bars in Nashville that have received the fliers, WTVF reported. The letters feature the acronym LGBT with images showing that the letters stand for Liberty, guns, beer and Trump," according to WTVF. There is an image of an assault rifle over the letter G and is reportedly similar to the gun used in the shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in 2016, according to WTVF.

The owner of Nashville's Stirrup Sports Bar, Melvin Brown, told WTVF that he views the flyer as a threat. Brown told the news station that he received the flyer with a Make America Great Again (MAGA) stamp on the back, which is Trump's slogan.

Melvin Brown, the owner of Nashville's Stirrup Sports Bar, told WTVF that he sees the flyer as a threat. The images were delivered with a "MAGA" stamp on the back, according to WTVF, a reference to Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan. The return address on the envelope of the flier was for an empty parking lot, according to WTVF.

"When you put a picture of an assault rifle on there which was used in the Pulse shooting and you mail it to every LGBT bar in Nashville, that is coming from a hateful place," Brown told the news station. "To say that it's disturbing is an understatement."

Chris Sanders, executive director of the Tennessee Equality Project, told NBC News that he believes the fliers were mailed to intimidate gay bar owners. He told the news station that many gay bars host voter registration drives.

"This has a very aggressive tone about it," Sanders told NBC News. "It doesn't use many words, but it uses a lot of images I think are meant to threaten us. The community's message back is, 'Yes this is frightening, but we're going to turn out and vote regardless.'"

Newsweek has reached out to the Nashville Police Department on the incident but did not hear back in time for publication. Kris Mumford, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, told Newsweek the department is aware of the fliers but there has been no report filed about the fliers. Mumford told Newsweek that the department dispatched additional officers to the gay bars that have received the fliers. Mumford said that if a report is filed, they will follow up on it.

On Sunday, a Department of Health and Human Services memo obtained by The New York Timesstated that the Trump administration was seeking to narrow the legal definition of gender to the gender people were born with, with many believing the new move could stop the recognition of transgender Americans.

The memo states that the administration wants to create an unchanging definition of gender "on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable."

This story was updated to include a comment from a spokesperson for the Nashville Police Department.