NRA Gun Raffle Planned For Staten Island Despite Protests

STATEN ISLAND, NY — A Staten Island group is set to hold a fundraiser and gun raffle for a National Rifle Association charity this fall even after protests canceled a similar event in Brooklyn. Staten Island Friends of NRA is planning a Sept. 13 fundraiser at The Vanderbilt at South Beach to benefit the NRA Foundation, an online event listing shows.

The Staten Island group plans to give away the NRA's "Gun of the Year," a Kimber 1911 pistol, as a raffle prize at the $65-a-ticket dinner, according to a Facebook post. The gun comes with a matching Silver Stag knife and a display case.

Brooklyn's Friends of NRA planned to do the same at an April 12 dinner at Gargiulo's Restaurant in Coney Island until the eatery canceled the event last week. Activists and local officials had criticized Gargiulo's for hosting an event tied to the powerful gun lobby group in the wake of the Feb. 14 school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

Staten Island is known as one of New York City's few conservative strongholds. Staten Island Friends of NRA's website shows the group has held dinners to support the NRA Foundation, which gives money to gun sports programs and to the NRA itself, for more than two decades.

"For the most part, we have elected officials who are less inclined to make assumptions and cast aspersions," City Councilman Joe Borelli, a Staten Island Republican, told the New York Post, which first reported on the event.

One person cited the dinner in a one-star Yelp review for The Vanderbilt on Tuesday. Several such reviews hit the Gargiulo's Yelp page last week.

"Go out of business gun lovers. Not in NYC," Andrew A. wrote. "Hosting big NRA event after high school shot up. WRONG."

(Lead image: Photo by Slave-1/Shutterstock)