“Are you all tone deaf?” wrote Dan Weaver in a comment on Patterson’s page. “AR15 kills seventeen so you raffle a gun for child sports? Lord, people wake the hell up. Justify all you want but you are wrong, period.” Patterson responded by writing that “gun raffles have been going on for years. Evil has and will always exist. Our hearts break for those involved, and we do not take that lightly.” He also told The Star that he was not making a political statement with the raffle item. It was simply what had been offered by Black Rain. He said critics view the weapon as a “killing machine.” On Wednesday, Patterson took to Facebook to fire back at the “concerned group” critical of the raffle. “We appreciate your ‘concern’ but please understand, we are not, have not, and will not force one of our boys to sell raffle tickets for the Black Rain AR15 Spec 15, if they are uncomfortable doing so,” he wrote. He told The Star that all the players, who range in age from 7 to 9, are selling the raffle tickets. The raffle is not affiliated with the Neosho School District. The winner must pass a background check before receiving the gun. Lee Woodward, the principal of South Elementary School in Neosho, announced the raffle on her Facebook page and encouraged purchases to support the “9u Neosho baseball players, coaches, and parents.” The post was made hours after the Florida shooting. Woodward did not return a call or text to a phone number listed in her name. Tyler Tannahill, a Republican congressional candidate from Kansas, also drew criticism this past week for offering an AR-15 giveaway as part of his campaign.

More than 100 protesters stood outside the National Rifle Association headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia, on Friday night demanding action on gun control in the wake of Wednesday's school shooting in Florida.

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Among the attendees were friends of some of the 17 students and teachers who were killed in Parkland, Florida, as well as Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., and relatives of those shot and killed at Virginia Tech in 2007.

"Children are dead because of you," Connolly said of the NRA, in comments reported by Washington, D.C. ABC affiliate WJLA.

More than 100 people gathered outside NRA headquarters in Fairfax, Va., on Friday night, Feb. 16, 2018, to call for gun control reform.

One of the attendees at the vigil was the friend of Nicholas Dworet, a 17-year-old senior at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, who was killed in Wednesday's shooting. Dworet had committed to the University of Indianapolis swim team.

"I'm burying my best friend next week," the teen, who did not want to be identified, told WJLA. "I cheered with these people and I cheered with one of these girls. Now I have to bury my best friend who is committed to the University of Indianapolis for swimming. I grew up with him."

Peter Reed, whose daughter Mary was among the 32 people killed in a shooting at Virginia Tech in April 2007, said the shooting on Wednesday brought back horrible memories.

"It very quickly takes us back to where we were in April of 2007. It's numbing. It's maddening," Read told WJLA.

The NRA, a regular financial backer of Republican politicians, has not commented on Wednesday's deadly shooting. The NRA has defended sales of the AR-15, the semi-automatic weapon used in Parkland and a number of other mass shootings.

The NRA says the AR-15 has "soared in popularity" because it is "customizable, adaptable, reliable and accurate" and "can be used in sport shooting, hunting and self-defense situations."

Flags were flying at half-staff outside NRA headquarters on Friday.