I don’t know if this is funny or awful. By contributing to a fund raiser for two cancer patients, a police union in 
Janesville, Wisconsin is offering an AR-15 assault rifle as a prizes. You can also win a Glock 17 automatic pistol. See the full story in the Janesville Gazette: http://www.gazettextra.com/news/government/raffle-of-ar–by-police-raises-questions/article_f842dd0f-99ed-5fa5-8bed-e0a66b7d9533.html
There are two cancer patients—a 3 year old and an adult. The purpose of the raffle is to raise money to help them. Is the police union nuts? What does an AR-15 assault rifle have to do with cancer patients? After all the mass shootings in the country where the shooter used an AR-15 assault rifle (or something similar), wouldn’t you think the union could offer something else? Anything else?
A spokesperson for the union, Justin Stubbendick, said the winner would still have to undergo a background check. That’s comforting. He also said the board discussed the appropriateness of offering an AR-15 assault rifle— especially after the shooting at Parkland high school in which the shooter used an AR-15 assault rifle. The board decided to go ahead since the plan for the raffle was already publicized.
How many participants who give their $10 will be disappointed they can’t take home an assault rifle?
There’s nothing illegal about offering it. The weapon was donated by a legitimate firearms dealer. So, what is the problem here? Mr. Stubbendick says he doesn’t want to get into an argument about whether AR-15 assault rifles should be allowed to be sold to private citizens.
How can he miss the awful symbolism here? AR-15 assault rifle
Why can’t the union offer a different type of weapon? A shotgun, for example. If people are primarily motivated to buy a ticket to help cancer patients, I can’t imagine they’d be upset to swap-out a different gun
Ironically, there’s also been a burst of social media traffic from gun-rights people asking where they could buy a raffle ticket. It could turn the raffle into a political football instead of focusing on the cancer patients and what the raffle is really for.
Drop the AR-15 assault rifle!!
