A fundraising event planned by charity for National Rifle Association (NRA) in Hondo Texas, some 40 miles away from the Robb Elementary School shooting, was canceled after relatives of the victims demanded that the Hondo City Council nix the fundraiser.
The Hondo City Council voted 4-to-1 on Monday to deny Friends of the NRA, the foundation that planned the fundraiser, a space for the event in the city’s Medina Fair Hall after relatives protested the affair.
“It is a slap in the face to all of Uvalde, especially the ones that lost a loved one, some of us being here today. What’s an even harder slap in the face is the AR-15 you get if you donate $5,000 to the NRA,” Jazmin Cazares, whose sister died in the Uvalde massacre, told CNN. “What you guys decide to do next with this NRA meeting either proves me right or proves me wrong about how I feel about Hondo.”
“Us as parents deserve better than this. I mean, you can’t sit here and try to sell a rifle strikingly similar to the one that killed our children, you know, less than 60 days after they passed away,” Angel Garza, the stepfather of a child who was killed in the massacre, echoed to a CBS affiliate.
The event would have taken place just months after an 18-year-old shooter in Uvalde, Texas stormed the Robb Elementary School with a semiautomatic assault rifle, gunning down nineteen students and two teachers.
Uvalde family members of victims spoke up at a neighboring town’s city council meeting about a local NRA fundraiser that would be raffling off an AR-15….they were met with snickering and jeers
*The NRA is a terrorist organization pic.twitter.com/h8V2fVU5eA
— Wu-Tang Is For The Children (@WUTangKids) August 3, 2022
Just days after the shooting, numerous gun reform advocates called on the NRA to cancel its convention in Houston. However, the group refused to do so, allowing thousands of attendees, along with numerous conservative lawmakers, to sell pro-gun paraphernalia and parrot talking points about the importance of preserving the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.
This week, planners of the event stressed that the fundraiser is not technically affiliated with the NRA and that it had been months in the making.
“These events are planned months in advance with the goal of raising funds for local programs that promote safe and responsible gun ownership,” Lars Dalseide, a spokesperson for the NRA, told CNN. “Penalizing hundreds of volunteers and participants at the 11th hour for the crimes of a sick, evil criminal is misguided and wrong.”
The fundraiser has taken place consistently over the past fifteen years. Event planners were expected to conduct a gun raffle.
Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One
Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.
Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.
Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.
As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.
And if you feel uncertain about what to do in the face of a second Trump administration, we invite you to be an indispensable part of Truthout’s preparations.
In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.
We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.
We urgently need your help to prepare. As you know, our December fundraiser is our most important of the year and will determine the scale of work we’ll be able to do in 2025. We’ve set two goals: to raise $110,000 in one-time donations and to add 1350 new monthly donors by midnight on December 31.
Today, we’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.
If you have the means to make a substantial gift, please dig deep during this critical time!
With gratitude and resolve,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy