And the prize is an AR-15 rifle, the same make of semi-automatic weapon used in the Orlando attack that killed 49 people and wounded dozens more.
Advertisement
The Chicago Tribune reports (http://trib.in/29jQ9lo ) Second Amendment Sports in McHenry, Illinois, called off the raffle following questions about whether it would be legal. The winning ticket, to be announced at the end of July, will receive an assault rifle as their prize – a very similar style, mind you, as the gun used to carry out the massacre.
The proceeds from the $5 tickets for the raffle will go to the OneOrlando Fund, and the store owners will announce the victor at a July 31 event timed for a celebration of the six-year-old shop’s new gun range and larger showroom.
Her son, John Larimer, a 27-year-old Navy sailor from Crystal Lake, was among the 12 people shot to death at an Aurora, Colorado, theater.
“It seems unclear to me how they could be doing a raffle”, he said of the gun shop raffle before it was called off.
The owners plan to add $2,000 to all money raised.
The gun shop owners insist it’s not a political statement. “We thought we would take the focus off this being a gun issue, which it is not, and put it to the fact of what it is, which is a terrorist attack on Americans”.
Second Amendment Sports was inundated with angry messages on its Facebook page.
“I understand that there are different opinions out there”, Vic Santi, the store marketing director, told the Tribune. All tickets will be sold for $5 (€4.50) each.
Proceeds will benefit OneOrlando Fund, which is run by not-for-profit group Strengthen Orlando Inc to help victims of the tragedy.
The gun store in McHenry, which is located 50 miles outside of Chicago, is not the first to give away AR-15s in the wake of the Orlando shooting.
“Every single gun starts off legal”, Daley told Chicago TV station, WFLD.
Advertisement
“And if this is how we feel is the best way to raise as much money or as large of a fund as we can, I think that people should be happy with that”, Irslinger stated. “And that’s to kill a large number of people in a short period of time which is exactly what happened in Orlando”.
