The Patriot Post® · Pastor, Raffle, Rifle, Prison?

An interesting story has developed in the town of Lake Oswego, Oregon, where an Episcopal pastor who recently won a raffle for an AR-15 may have broken state law. The Rev. Jeremy Lucas learned of a local girls’ softball team who was raffling off an AR-15 in order to raise money to travel to a tournament in California. Being the gun-control supporter that he is, he decided that “this gun will never be used to kill kids in schools, kill people in a movie theater, kill people at an office party or any other place of mass shootings.” Rev. Lucas said he was “driven” by his faith to do something, so he used $3,000 in personal and church member donated funds to buy up as many raffle tickets as possible. He won the rifle.

Upon winning, he received the rifle and gave it to one of his parishioners to keep in a gun safe until it could be melted down and turned into a piece of art — to symbolize his belief that God is against guns or something. Another win for the anti-gun crowd? Not so fast.

As news of the “heroic” anti-gun pastor broke, one seemingly insignificant detail started to make the rounds. Did the pastor break the law? You see, the state of Oregon has a gun law on the books that strictly forbids “straw” purchases. The parishioner who received the gun from the pastor had not received a background check and therefore was possibly in violation of the law.

An investigation has been initiated by the local police department to determine if a crime was committed. Meanwhile, local conservative talk show host Lars Larson summed up the issue well, stating, “If the pastor is prosecuted, it will demonstrate the idiocy of the laws and the people who passed it. If the pastor is not prosecuted, it will demonstrate that anti-gun liberals are above the law and it was only intended to hurt the average gun owner, against whom it could be selectively enforced.”