Current Event 2: Vote and Win a Gun

The Adventure Outdoors hunting store in Smyrna, Georgia recently decided to have a gun raffle in order to encourage people to vote on Election Day. The winner of the raffle wins a Glock and Browning rifle.

My first thought was, “A raffle for a gun for voting? That’s when you know you live in the south.” This raffle brought attention to the state law that claims providing money or prizes for voting is a felony. This raffle is legal because a voter does not have to show proof that he or she voted and raffle tickets are free.

The legal age to own a handgun in Georgia is 21 years old, so it got me thinking that this raffle may break Georgia gun laws. However, the gun in the raffle is a shotgun and those who are entering the raffle are 18 years old and over, which makes this raffle legal as well.

The raffle is an interesting occurrence considering how Americans’ views about the second amendment are changing. The owner of this store only reported some “nasty emails” but besides that many people love the raffle. Considering that the government is thinking about taking away citizens’ right to bear arms, events like this show that citizens feel the second amendment remains important.

If the government were to take away the second amendment and make the selling of guns and ammunition illegal, I think we would have a larger gun problem… guns would be the new marijuana. There would be a black market for guns and ammunition, making the whole situation worse off than it is now.

Citizens who already own guns are not going to be willing to give them up. We live in the south. Imagine all the people who own family farms that hunt on their land or people that hunt for sport, or people who own guns for protection. Gunsmiths and companies would lose major income, damaging our economy further and more people would lose jobs.

The government would have to go home to home searching for weapons to stop this problem and the chances of that are slim-to-none. With everything taken into account, I believe that it is too late to enforce this law; we are already too deep.

Sources: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/10/gun-raffle-challenged-in-vote-campaign/