A couple of weeks ago, Cam wrote about how The Trace was going after gun raffles. In particular, the incident in question was one being run by Shriners.
He did a good job taking apart the stupidity there, but it seems that an actual Shriner wanted to take a swing at it, too.
First, some disclosure. I'm a 3rd Degree Master Mason. While I'm not a Shriner, Shriners are Master Masons first.
However, I'd agree with this even if I weren't a fellow Mason.
This unwarranted attack raises questions, including why would you allow your political beliefs to attack people doing good for our communities? Does it feel good to sling attacks at an organization that offers medical care to children, totally free of charge should the family not have the means to pay? Would it be better to allow these children to live a life never knowing their full potential – free from the burdens of orthopedic challenges, severe burns or severe cleft lip or palate?
As long as it pushes your agenda, right?
While some may agree with their political position, it seems beyond reasonable to me that no one should ever attack charitable organizations that are trying to make a positive impact. These are organizations that are not politically postured in any way. If you don’t like that fundraiser, don’t attend. My suggestion would be that instead of attempting to smear the good work they do, perhaps find another way to get involved in something you care about by volunteering or financially supporting a nonprofit organization.
The world has enough negativity right now. I sit and think about a 5-year-old little boy who has become a part of my life through my volunteering efforts. A child who had to have his leg amputated below the knee and even amid his challenges, his spirit and energy can light up a room. It’s through his determination, combined with the efforts of the charity, which I am proud to represent, that I’ve had the blessing of watching him run around like any other healthy child.
I simply wonder how someone can become so blinded by political hate that they would rather choose criticism and unnecessary attacks to raise funds against people who make such impressionable, life-changing opportunities come to fruition.
This isn’t about firearm safety, folks… it’s about choosing negativity and political weaponry over goodwill in our communities and it’s disappointing, to say the least.
Now, author Art Thomm isn't just a Shriner but also the Director of Government Relations – State Affairs for NSSF, so he's got a couple of different stakes in the matter.
What he's not, though, is wrong.
The truth of the matter is that gun raffles aren't just handing guns to people out of the blue just because they got the winning ticket.
Instead, what they do is raffle a gun that then has to be picked up at a gun store, which means people have to go through the NICS checks, fill out the appropriate ATF and any state paperwork, all before taking possession of the firearm in question. They go through every step The Trace and its financial backer Michael Bloomberg suggest they want for people to go through, so why is this a problem?
Because it's not about making sure guns don't end up in the wrong hands, it's about trying to minimize the total number of right hands that get them.
Raffles are a normal fact of life, and the products raffled off tend to be things that are worth a good bit of money but are also a regular part of everyday life. Raffling guns means that guns are still a fact of life for law-abiding people throughout the nation.
The Trace, however, wants guns stigmatized. They want raffles of firearms to end because they continue to help normalize gun ownership.
There's no plague of people winning guns in raffles, then going on shooting sprees of anything of the sort, but they do allow people to obtain guns at relatively little cost. There's such a low probability of winning in a lot of cases that no one is going to look at raffles as the way to arm up in the first place, mind you, but they can drop a few dollars for a ticket and then take possession of a firearm that cost orders of magnitude more. That's also a problem for The Trace.
But raffles of all kinds raise a lot of money for a lot of great causes, and firearms are bigger-ticket items that can successfully be raffled. They get raffled because people buy tickets like crazy, in part because we gun owners figure you never can own too many guns, so even if we have one, we'll just get another. That doesn't necessarily work with sports cars, televisions, kitchen appliances, or a lot of similarly-priced items.
The Trace, for all the self-congratulatory attitudes of its writers, doesn't actually care about the communities. It just cares about treating people like you as if you're the problem.
