Montini: Republican plans gun orgy on eve of March for Our Lives

EJ Montini: It's one thing to have a campaign event at a gun range. But now?

EJ Montini
The Republic | azcentral.com
A rack displays various models of semi-automatic sporting rifles, Thursday, March 1, 2018.

A Republican candidate for the Arizona Senate is planning a gun orgy.

Fine. People have differing opinions about firearms.

This particular candidate, however, is planning what his campaign website calls a “2nd Amendment Shoot-off” for the day before hundreds of thousands of young people will gather in Washington, D.C., and cities across America, including Phoenix, to participate in March for Our Lives rallies, urging an end to gun violence.

The March for Our Lives movement began after the mass killing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

Since then, high school students in every state have been petitioning local, state and federal elected officials to do something positive and useful about gun violence.

The students already have been getting a first-hand look at the power of the National Rifle Association ... and the weakness of politicians.

Now, here in Arizona, we have evidence of the level of disdain adults actually feel toward these young, earnest students.

Republican State Senate Candidate Frank Schmuck is staging a campaign fundraising event at a Tempe gun range. The admission is $100 per shooter.

A BYOB (bring your own bullets) affair

You can purchase ammunition or BYOB (bring your own bullets)

There will be access to a live range and a “professional shooting simulator.”

And, according to the invitation, “winner of simulator shoot-off will shoot Colt M16 or HK Machine Gun.”

Campaign events often are planned well in advance.

I get that.

But there are times when circumstance dictates a change of plans.

Like, for instance, the massacre of students at a high school using an assault weapon.

Like a nationwide series of gatherings by students to decry the use and availability of such weapons.

Like now.

Rotten timing, and an insult

Now is a rotten time for a “2nd Amendment Shoot-off” featuring the opportunity to blast away with a “Colt M16 or HK MP5 Machine Gun.”

In a previous campaign for office Schmuck produced an ad implying he had the support the Professional Fire Fighters of Arizona.

He didn’t.

Or, as president Brian Jeffries said, “Our choice to endorse Sen. Dial is reaffirmed by your decision to falsely use a picture of our firefighter members posed in front a City of Glendale fire engine, thus implying that they’re supportive of your campaign.”

Schmuck has every right to hold a campaign event at a gun range.

Bad timing or utter disrespect?

But now?

With what’s been happening?

On the day before the March for Our Lives?

It’s insensitive at best and easily perceived as an insult.

It may not be intentionally spitting in the face of the teens trying to end gun violence, but if the saliva fits …

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