Gun control advocates tried to pressure a New York hotel to cancel an event that's being sponsored by the Hudson Valley Friends of the National Rifle Association next month but to no avail.
The Hilton Pearl River hotel in Hudson Valley said in a release on Facebook that it does not discriminate against any individual or group and that it would allow the group to hold its annual fundraiser as planned on April 15.
The hotel also said it plans to donate 100 percent of the hotel's proceeds from the event to "organizations working for the good of Rockland County."
But anti-gun control groups are still planning to protest at the event.
"The NRA is a political lobby that has in recent history worked against common sense gun reform by using fear mongering and charged rhetoric," Joseph Coe, one of the protest organizers, told USA Today. "I ask that the people organizing this event denounce the NRA and do their gun safety/outdoor sportspeople activities outside the hyper-politicized NRA."
Coe said he wants event organizers to "denounce the NRA."
"We need to listen to the call of our young people to pass common sense gun reform," he said. "The NRA is one of biggest obstacles in our country to achieve this collective goal. The NRA stranglehold on Congress and statehouses across our country must end. And we must and will vote out politicians who are bought and paid for by the NRA."
Coe also said he asked the hotel owners to donate the proceeds to gun-reform organizations.
Protest co-sponsors include the Rockland County Democratic Committee; Lower Hudson Valley Progressive Action Network; Rockland Families for Social Justice Discussion Group; We of Action-NY; Rockland Citizens Action Network; and the Rockland County Young Democrats.
