Photo via @NRA/Twitter, Lorie Shaull/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
March 23, 2021, 10:20 am
The National Rifle Association has put itself in the public crosshairs once again, this time for not even waiting a day after a high-profile mass shooting before tweeting something about the Second Amendment.
Featured Video
Hide
Just over three hours after the Boulder, Colorado police department posted an alert about an active shooter at a local supermarket, the NRA Twitter account tweeted to quote this part of the U.S. constitution.
Advertisement
Hide
Typically, the NRA’s social media accounts go quiet for a couple of days after a mass shooting that kills so many people. However, the organization has declined to delete this post and in fact retweeted their own Second Amendment tweet at some point between the original’s posting and today.
The NRA has struggled with leadership issues and retaining membership after they transformed from an organization about safe gun ownership to a right-wing mouthpiece. In January, they filed for bankruptcy following a lawsuit by the New York state attorney general accusing them of misappropriating funds for the personal use of its leaders.
Advertisement
Hide
The organization has plans to restructure and move to Texas, but it won’t be able to escape the reputation it has built for itself. Their most recent tweet has been hit with a pretty brutal ratio, gaining nearly 12,000 comments in less than 24 hours which are overwhelmingly negative.
“People are DEAD in Boulder because of guns,” wrote Erie Siobhan. “Their bodies aren’t even cold yet. And this is what you tweet out? Literally saying nothing at all would have been better.”
“Where are these well regulated militias?” asked Dr. Paige Carita. “To which specific militias did the last 10 mass shooters belong? How does killing people in stores, spas, schools contribute to secure free state? How are we free when we have to run for our lives?”
Advertisement
Hide
To make things worse for the organization, the NRA posted a tweet one week ago praising the city of Boulder for striking down legislation that banned AR-15s and high-capacity magazines. The shooter who killed 10 on Monday used an AR-15, as have the vast majority of the high-profile and high-fatality mass shootings in the U.S.
Others accused the NRA of using mass shootings to fundraise, knowing that they can stoke fears about gun control laws to fuel an increase in gun sales, which are very common following a high-profile mass shooting. This is in spite of the fact that the U.S. has been unable to pass meaningful gun control laws in the face of increasingly frequent mass shootings for decades now.
Advertisement
Hide
“Imagine what our founding fathers would have thought about special interests, like @NRA, bribing our politicians in exchange for their lobbyists to be able to write laws?” said senate candidate Dan Whitfield. “I think treason would have been a word they used.”
*First Published: March 23, 2021, 10:20 am
0 Comments