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Oklahoma Church Cancels Gun Giveaway For Its Youth Conference

By 316Networks.com

Published: July 14, 2008

An church in Oklahoma recently canceled a controversial gun giveaway for teenagers during their weekend youth conference.

Windsor Hills Baptist planned to give away a semiautomatic assault rifle until one of the organizers of the event was no longer able to attend.

Bob Ross, the church's youth pastor, said it's a way of trying to encourage young people to attend the event. Hundreds of teenagers as far away as Canada were expected to attend.

According to a video on the church's web site, a gun giveaway, as well as a shooting competition, was apart of last year's youth conference. This year, organizers chose to include it in their marketing of the conference.

"I don't want people thinking ‘My goodness, we're putting a weapon in the hand of somebody that doesn't respect it who are then going to go out and kill,'" says Ross. "That's not at all what we're trying to do."

Ross said the conference isn't about guns, but rather about teens finding their faith. "We have 21 hours of preaching and teaching throughout the week," Ross said.

"You make a lot of new friends down here," says Vikki Goncharenko, who attended the conference. "You get to meet new people. There's a bunch of things that are going on. It's just, you have a wonderful time."

Ross said the gun giveaway had been canceled. Pastor emeritus Jim Vineyard, who was an organizer of the event, injured his foot and couldn't attend. The gun giveaway has been removed from the church web site.

However, Ross said the church would give the gun away next year. He said the church has spent nearly $800 on the gun used in the promotion.

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