A Tennessee lawmaker said Tuesday that his office has received threats for planning to give away the same type of semi-automatic rifle used by a gunman in the massacre of 49 people at an Orlando nightclub.
Before the shootings happened, Republican state Rep. Andy Holt had offered the AR-15 as a door prize at a fundraiser scheduled for later this month. When he was heavily criticized following Sunday’s shootings, he said he would give away a second one as well.
“In response to people saying I shouldn’t do this: No, actually we should — and we should celebrate it,” Holt said in a telephone interview. “Not in response to what happened in Orlando by all means, but in response to the bans that have been called for.”
Holt, a hog farmer from northwestern Tennessee, was the sponsor of a new law this year to allow faculty and staff at public colleges and universities to be armed on campus. He said that more armed people inside the Orlando club could have intervened before so many people were killed by the gunman.
State Democratic Party Chair Mary Mancini in a release on Monday called Holt a (conntinue reading at WKRN)