Ready, Aim, Raffle

A tasteless drawing to assist gun scofflaws in Fairfax

THE VIRGINIA Citizens Defense League, a trigger-happy group that regards the National Rifle Association as slightly spineless on gun rights, will hold a raffle tonight in a Fairfax County government building. The door prizes include a hunting rifle, a semiautomatic handgun and ammunition -- more than $2,000 in merchandise in all. The league's goal is to assist Virginia firearms dealers alleged to have skirted the state's already lax laws on gun purchases. So, a month after a deranged gunman killed 32 people at Virginia Tech, a Virginia group is coddling scofflaw gun dealers in the same state.

This sorry story originated with a reasonable attempt by New York City authorities to take action against several dozen gun stores, in Virginia and elsewhere, that sold firearms later used in the commission of felonies in the Big Apple. The city sent pairs of private detectives to six of the stores to make "straw" purchases, in which one selected and paid for a weapon, and the other filled out the paperwork, thereby disguising the true owner's identity. The gun-loving Defense League decided that the gun stores were victims -- not the New Yorkers shot, pistol-whipped or mugged in New York -- and cooked up the idea of the raffle. (The drawing was originally scheduled for April 19, three days after the Virginia Tech killings; it was postponed because the group knew it would be inflammatory.)

Fairfax County's top prosecutor, Robert F. Horan Jr., slapped down the group's original game plan, which was to limit the drawing to those who had bought at least $100 worth of merchandise at one of the two gun stores caught in the sting. In tonight's drawing, tickets will be available to all comers. Still, the group has already achieved its purpose, which was to help to pay the legal fees of the gun shops, which are being sued in federal court by New York. In recent weeks, more than 2,500 people cleared the $100 threshold at the two shops, Bob Moates Sport Shop in Richmond and Old Dominion Gun and Tackle in Danville.

The drawing is to be held in the Mason District Government Center in Annandale, which includes a county police station -- the same sort of station as the one at which two county officers were shot by a gunman a year ago. Fairfax County pushed legislation in Richmond this year that would have banned the carrying of handguns at such facilities by nonauthorized individuals. The bill sailed through the state Senate but died in the House -- killed, it seems, by the gun lobby and groups such as the Citizens Defense League.