Barely a week after the worst mass shooting in the nation’s history, state Sen. Greg Evers, running in a hotly contested Republican primary for a Panhandle congressional seat, drew criticism for planning to give away a semiautomatic rifle similar to a gun used in the attack that killed 49 people and injured dozens of others at a gay nightclub in Orlando.
Evers, a Baker Republican who has frequently sponsored legislation backed by the National Rifle Association, announced Monday he is giving away an AR-15 rifle to a resident of Congressional District 1 who has “liked” and “shared” Evers’ Facebook page.
Omar Mateen used a similar gun during the deadly assault early June 12 on the Pulse nightclub.
“With terrorism incidents on the rise, both at home and abroad, protecting our constitutional rights has never been more important,” Evers said in a prepared statement accompanying the announcement.
The winner of the “custom-built” rifle will be selected on July 4, with the contestant having to meet eligibility requirements, according to a news release and a post on Evers’ Facebook page.
But LGBT activists decried Evers’ decision to essentially raffle off the gun while funerals for the 49 clubgoers, most of them gay and Hispanic, have just begun.
“I think it is tasteless, disrespectful, disgusting, political pandering at its worst,” Stratton Pollitzer, deputy director of Equality Florida, an LGBT advocacy group that has raised more than $6 million for victims of the massacre.
“The idea that he wants to put the same style assault rifle that was just used for mass murder into the hands of a random stranger is grotesque,” Pollitzer said.
Evers is running to replace veteran U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, who announced earlier this year he will not seek re-election, in what is expected to be a brutal campaign against state Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, and James Zumwalt, an Iraq war veteran and former Miller aide.
Evers made his announcement the day before U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch is scheduled to travel to Orlando to meet with victims, first responders and other members of the Orlando community reeling from the attack on the popular nightclub in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Critics view Evers’ gun giveaway as a way for him to beef up support from Second Amendment backers in arguably the state’s most conservative congressional district, which abuts the Alabama border and spans Escambia, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa and Walton counties and includes most of Holmes County. The winner of the Aug. 30 GOP primary is almost certain to go to Washington.