A gun advocacy group played host to a banquet Saturday night in Nelson Commons, which included catered food, some of Southeast Ohio politics' biggest names and the raffling of firearms.
The Friends of NRA, a fundraising project of the National Rifle Association Foundation, organized the event in the stately South Green dining room most students remember from Precollege orientation.
Guests could also purchase alcohol at the commons because the group applied for, and received, a one-day permit, said John Burns, director of Ohio University's Office of Legal Affairs.
The presence of firearms in proximity to alcohol is generally illegal, said John Fulkerson, Ohio deputy attorney general. But the Ohio Revised Code allows an exemption to any person possessing or displaying firearms in any room used to exhibit unloaded firearms for sale or trade G? in a convention center
or in any other public meeting place if the person is an exhibitor trader
purchaser
or seller of firearms and is not otherwise prohibited by law from possessing
trading
purchasing
or selling the firearms.
As long as they don't have a convicted felon holding the guns
they're probably covered
Fulkerson said.
The guts of it are: you're not supposed to have a gun where liquor is being served
he said, Though there are some exceptions.
Organizers raffled and auctioned off handguns, shotguns and rifles as well as other memorabilia, camping equipment and an all-terrain vehicle. Ohio Revised Code states it is prohibited to knowingly convey
