Elementary school students participating in the nonprofit Junior Lions Football and Cheer program in New Richmond, Ohio, are being asked to sell raffle tickets for an AM-15 rifle to raise money for the program. While this horrifying practice is being criticized by parents today, it’s been a popular fundraiser in the past.
Oh—and New Richmond is just an hour away from Dayton, where a white man shot 26 people in 32 seconds with an AR-15-style assault rifle.
"This is absurd, you're having elementary kids sell your AR-15. Why?" Heather Chilton, who said her 7-year-old daughter was asked to sell the tickets, told CNN affiliate WXIX. "I highly doubt that something would happen with the gun, but say it did. Say one of the kids in the high school got a hold of it — got the AR-15 or AM-15 and shot up a school with it, and I'm the one that sold the raffle ticket to his dad?"
About 150 students participate in the football and cheer program, which is independent of the local schools. It’s a nonprofit football and cheerleading organization for kids ages 5 to 12.
Chilton said that she received an email in July explaining that all cheer team members had to sell five gift basket raffle tickets as well as five AM-15 raffle tickets. The tickets are $10 each. If they didn’t do all of this, they’d face a $100 fee per child who opted out.
The league's president, Robert Wooten, told CNN that members of the board choose the raffle prize each year. The gun, which has been raffled off in the last four cycles, has been a popular fundraising item.
"It's easy to sell. It's a hot item," Wooten said. This year, Wooten noted, the gun raffle tickets "sold like hot cakes." The winner will have to pass an FBI background check before receiving the gun.
"We are compassionate [on] where people may be on the gun issue," Wooten told CNN. "This was not a way for us to promote gun violence or incite violence. We are going to reevaluate this next year."
For the time being, since the recent complaints, Wooten has said that parents uncomfortable with the gun raffle tickets can sell more for the gift baskets instead. But Chilton is understandably still uneasy with the gun raffle tickets being sold by other team members. "With me doing this, I'm teaching the girls they have to stand up for what they believe," Chilton said. "This is something that they shouldn't even have to worry about dealing with or even be around."
What will it take for the American obsession with guns to finally end?