Sweet: Pro-gun group turns the tables on gun control advocates
This is your feel-good story for the day. A downstate Illinois gun rights group is using cash gleaned from a Chicago police gun turn-in program as a fundraiser for a camp for kids - run by the National Rifle Association.
A Downstate pro-gun group says it turned payouts from Chicago's firearm buyback program last weekend into a fund-raiser for a youth summer camp -- a National Rifle Association shooting camp, that is.
The city collected 5,500 guns last Saturday in the annual buyback. The city gave out $100 MasterCard gift cards for each gun and $10 cards for BB guns and replicas.
Sixty of the guns and several BB guns were turned in by the Champaign-based Guns Save Life. In return, the group received $6,240 in gift cards, said John Boch, president of the group.
Guns Save Life is known for the pro-gun signs the group posts along Interstate 57 between Chicago and Champaign. It also publishes a monthly gun journal.
Most of the money will go toward buying ammunition for an NRA youth camp in Bloomington. The rest will pay for four bolt-action rifles that will be given away to campers.
"This was rusty, non-firing junk that we turned in," Boch said. "We are redirecting funds from people who would work against the private ownership of firearms to help introduce the next generation to shooting safely and responsibly."
It doesn't get any sweeter than that.