Mississippi school booster club raffles ’30 guns in 30 days,’ sparking outrage after Uvalde

A Mississippi Coast high school booster group has launched a controversial fundraiser to help pay for a band trip to Florida.

The fundraiser — called “30 guns in 30 days” — is a raffle that awards a gun, artillery or other weapons every day for a month. Janean Murphy posts a video to Facebook daily announcing the winner and the prize.

The raffle tickets cost $100 each and the proceeds will send the West Harrison High School band on a trip to Orlando, according to the fundraiser’s Facebook page.

The raffle is organized by the band’s booster club and is sponsored by High Caliber Guns, a gun shop in Long Beach.

With entry, participants have a chance at winning various weaponry, including semiautomatic handguns, shotguns and a flamethrower.

‘It is in extremely poor taste,’ parent says

The fundraiser comes in a heightened political climate around guns, after several recent mass shootings across the U.S., including the Uvalde, Texas elementary school shooting that left 19 children dead.

“It’s highly inappropriate,” said Tori Bishop, a former Harrison County School District parent and an administrator for a Facebook group focused on school safety called Harrison County Parents for a Safer Return to School. The group has more than 1,500 members.

“In light of the recent school shooting, and the mass shootings we’ve been having going on in this country...it is in extremely poor taste, I am disappointed in the district,” Bishop said.

Harrison County School District Superintendent Mitchell King said the fundraiser was not affiliated with the school and directed all questions to the event’s organizers.

The Facebook page for the raffle at first included a profile image of the West Harrison logo but has since been changed.

Murphy, one of the raffle organizers, felt there was “nothing” to talk about and declined an interview with the Sun Herald after issuing a statement.

“It’s a raffle put together by group of like minded people to raise money for the band kids to compete in Bands of America,” she said.

Are gun raffles legal?

Gun raffles are not new to Mississippi, as they are frequently used as fundraisers for various initiatives across the state.

And they are legal.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) makes allowances for associations to hold gun raffles. The rules are simple. An officer or representative of the organization has to complete the ATF Form 4473 — the transaction record the ATF requires a person to fill out when purchasing the firearm from a gun dealer — using his or her personal information and undergo a background check. The guns are then transferred to the organization.

“Once the firearm [has] been transferred to the organization, the organization can subsequently transfer the firearm to the raffle winner without an ATF Form 4473 being completed or a NICS check being conducted,” according to the ATF. “This is because the organization is not a licensee.”

The only concerns organizers must be aware of are that the transfer must go to a resident of the organization’s state and the organization cannot knowingly transfer the firearm to a prohibited person.

West Harrison High band booster raffle winners are required to pass a background check conducted by High Caliber Guns.

“I understand that rifles are commonly raffled in this area but there are semi automatics and handguns on this list as well,” said former state representative Sonya Williams Barnes, who now works for Southern Poverty Law Center. “After the tragedy in Uvalde, it seems to me that the organizers should have used better judgment by shutting the raffle down. Even if for no other reason but for respect to those 19 babies and 2 teachers whose lives were lost.”

This story was originally published June 16, 2022 at 11:09 AM.