The Rhode Island Republican Party raffled off a Smith & Wesson AR-15, the rifle model used in the Newton, Conn. shootings, at a fundraiser Sunday, a move individuals from both parties called “inappropriate.”
The event was held at the South County Rod & Gun Club in West Greenwich and was advertised as “a family day at the range full of targets, food, prizes and fun,” the Providence Journal reported.
Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 P’17 called the event “tone deaf” and “inappropriate” due to the violence associated with the gun and called for GOP Finance Director and Rep. Doreen Costa, R-North Kingstown and Exeter, to “explain why this is a good idea,” the Journal reported.
“Giving away a gun as a prize like it’s a game gives off the wrong impression,” said Sen. Scott Ottiano, R-Bristol, Portsmouth and Tiverton, a member of the General Assembly task force on gun control.
The Second Amendment celebration “certainly could be perceived as insensitive to the concerns of the public,” he added. “Newtown is fresh in all of our memories, and the Navy Yard is immediately in our history.”
The controversy stems largely from the gun’s similarity to that used in the Newtown shooting — it is the same model but a different make.
“The fact that it was an AR-15, which is the same weapon that was used to massacre 5 and 6-year-olds and their teachers in Newtown, Conn., does not go unnoticed. The parallel is there,” said Rep. Deborah Ruggiero, D-Jamestown and Middletown.
Ruggiero is a co-chair of the task force working to balance the Second Amendment with firearm safety by increasing reporting of mental health issues to the national security background check system.
“The fundraising event is mutually exclusive of the work in the task force,” Ruggiero said, but she added that it is still “very irresponsible for someone to be able to buy a raffle ticket and walk away with a weapon like that.”
“The task force is something outside of this whole conversation about the GOP raffle,” said Sen. Cool Rumsey, D-Charlestown, Exeter, Hopkinton, Richmond and West Greenwich, a co-chair of the task force on gun safety. There is always a potential issue when anyone has a weapon in his or her possession, especially if a mental or behavioral problem exists as well, Rumsey said.
But “the GOP certainly has the right to raffle off whatever they see fit,” she said.
This controversy has created a divide even within the Republican Party. Chairman Mark Smiley said the event was held purely for fundraising, but fellow Republicans like Cranston Mayor Allan Fung and Sen. Dawson Hodgson, R-East Greenwich, North Kingstown, South Kingstown and Narragansett, expressed disapproval, the Journal reported. Michael Napolitano, the party’s communications director, said it might have been better to choose a different firearm but that he saw no issue in raffling off guns, the Journal reported.
“I don’t think raffling off any gun would have been appropriate in this situation,” Ottiano said.
Justin Braga ’16, vice president of the Brown Republicans and the chair of the College Republican Federation of Rhode Island, said he strongly supports the Second Amendment, but “given the adversity that has surrounded this particular model of firearm, I think that it was insensitive and inappropriate for it to be raffled off at an event that was a political fundraiser.”
As far as the event promoted individuals’ Second Amendment right to defend themselves and provided the opportunity to learn firearm safety tactics from National Rifle Association representatives, the celebration was “absolutely fine,” Braga said.
“The issue was really with raffling off the AR-15,” he said. “There are plenty other things they could have done to have a successful fundraiser rather than raffle off that particular firearm.”
Despite the backlash the event has encountered even from within the R.I. GOP, it raised about $12,000, the Journal reported. Braga said GOP members like Fung and Hodgson have the right to criticize the party’s decision, but he worries this may have an adverse affect on the already small Republican voter base in Rhode Island.
“It’s tough to gauge the potential gains and costs right now. We’ll have to wait and see,” Braga said.
Raffling off this sort of weapon “disrespects everyone who has personally been affected by their violence” and “enables craven individuals to single-handedly inflict large-scale harm,” the Brown Democrats wrote in a statement. “A culture that glorifies guns and violence is not a culture we want for ourselves, our children or our future.”
John Perilli ’15, communications director for the Brown Democrats, said the timing of the fundraiser indicates the state GOP is not willing to take steps to put an end to gun violence.
“Our political leaders should be identifying ways to better strengthen protections for Rhode Island neighborhoods against acts of violence from these weapons, not auctioning off these weapons for financial gain,” Perilli said. “It seems like they’re not dealing with the issue seriously.”
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