LEAVENWORTH, KS (KSNT/CNN) - A Kansas candidate for Congress is brushing off accusations of being tone deaf and continuing a campaign promotion to give away an AR-15 rifle.
Tyler Tannahill, a Republican candidate in Kansas’ second district, said the promotion was planned well before a gunman used the same weapon this week to kill 17 people at a high school in Florida.
"About a month ago we planned it out and earlier this week on Tuesday we did the launch,” he said.
Tannahill said as a supporter of the Second Amendment he was continuing with the giveaway as a matter of principle.
"I do believe in the Second Amendment and I stand for it in the hard times and the bad times, this is clearly a difficult time for a lot of people,” he said. “We had that discussion on if we keep it up or take it down and as a campaign we decided to keep it up to move forward with the discussion. There has been a lot of backlash on it, but we've also gotten a lot of support."
Tannahill is running the contest on his campaign website, though a post about it on his Facebook page has been removed. People are able to enter multiple times by giving their email, visiting the campaign’s Facebook page, entering a phone number, following Tannahill on Twitter, tweeting about the promotion, or answering the question, “What issue is most important to you?”
More than 3,000 entries have been submitted so far.
Tannahill acknowledged his promotion, with the gun again being in the news, had boosted his campaign’s profile.
"Obviously we don't want the name recognition based off Florida, we'd want everyone of those individuals back instead of the name recognition,” he said. “But you know it has gotten my name out there."
The campaign’s Facebook page has been flooded with critical comments, including a post on the day of the shooting that said Tannahill and his wife were “heartbroken” that received more than 1,400.
“Please don’t do this. It’s really inappropriate,” one commenter said of the gun giveaway.
Tannahill, a Marine veteran, said the winner will have to be able to legally buy a gun before receiving it. He plans to announce the winner within the next four months.
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