A Florida politician has announced a raffle to give away a weapon similar to the one used in the Orlando nightclub shooting that killed 49.
A spokesman for Republican state senator Greg Evers, who is running for US congress, confirmed to dpa on Tuesday that he is sponsoring a contest via his Facebook page to raffle off an AR-15 semi-automatic weapon.
The Orlando killer, Omar Mateen, used a semi-automatic rifle from the AR-15 family, along with a pistol, in his rampage in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
Evers is calling his contest the Homeland Defender giveaway.
The AR-15 looks nearly identical to the M16 weapon used by the military. Many of the worst mass shootings in the US in recent years were committed with the weapon.
President Barack Obama called for the renewal of a ban on such war-like weapons in the wake of the Orlando massacre.
The spokesman from the senator's campaign justified the action: "Obama blamed the incident on a weapon, he did not blame it on Islamic terrorism," he said.
"Our point is: In the US we have the right to bear arms. If the president does not protect us, we will count on the second amendment."
The second amendment of the US Constitution guarantees citizens the right to possess weapons.
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