Lake County Democrats Chair Slams Gun Raffle After Texas Mass Shooting

LAKE COUNTY, IL — Lake County Democrats are chastising the Lake Villa Township Republican Club's decision to hold a gun raffle in coming weeks. The raffle will be held weeks after the most recent deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

The annual fundraiser, which includes golfing and a gun raffle at the Fox Lake Country Club on June 16, "glorifies AR-15 type weapons," Lake County Democrats Chair Lauren Beth said in a statement Wednesday.

"Since they refuse to help Democrats pass common sense gun safety reforms, canceling this offensive gun raffle is literally the least Lake County Republicans can do," said Beth, who also serves as the democratic state central committeewoman. "This raffle is in devastatingly poor taste. They should show compassion and leadership and do the right thing, but it seems that we can always count on Republicans in Lake County to do the wrong thing."

Twenty-one people — two adults and 19 elementary school children — were shot and killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on Tuesday. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott identified the shooter as Salvador Ramos, of Uvalde.

The shooter carried a long rifle with multiple rounds of ammunition and wore a tactical vest as body armor, Lt. Christopher Olivarez of the Texas Department of Public Safety told The Associated Press.

• Texas School Shooting: What We Know About Uvalde Victims
  

Beth is slamming local republicans' decision to hold the raffle, which will "hand out deadly weapons meant for quickly killing people."

“Preventable gun violence and the horrors it produces for American parents, families, and children should not be accepted as some inevitable, incidental consequence of a constitutional right to bear arms. Mass murders are preventable, and their preventability hinges on curbing inappropriate access to firearms," Beth said. "Firearms—as any responsible gun owner knows and clearly agrees with—should not be distributed in the same manner as stuffed animals at a carnival," she said in the Wednesday statement.

This is not the first time Lake County Republicans have refused to cancel their gun raffle after a mass shooting. In 2017, the gun raffle occurred after the shooting at the Mandalay Bay Hotel killed 61 and injured hundreds.

"Ignoring public backlash, they refused to use even minimally decent judgment and cancel the raffle out of respect for the victims and public safety," Beth said.

• Protesters 'Baffled' By Rifle Raffle

Protesters gathered outside the event in October 2017 at Concorde Banquets in Killdeer.

One Republican guest of the event, Ted Livengood of Round Lake Beach, told the Lake County News-Sun demonstrators should not have a problem with an event that is not breaking any laws. He said Republicans support the constitution, but some people just don't understand it.

"Demonizing us is wrong," Livengood told the News-Sun. "Everyone is looking for a bogeyman every time something happens but we're just exercising our rights."