NRA Page Goes Dark: Facebook & Twitter Silent After Sandy Hook School Shooting
The National Rifle Association's main Facebook page remains inaccessible and its Twitter account has been silence since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
The only thing that remains is the NRA Facebook blog and that the last post, shared at 6:30 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 14 (the same morning as the shooting), was about the "Friends of NRA" television show that will start its third season soon.
On Twitter, Dec.14 was also the last day that NRA tweeted a post. At 6:36 a.m., viewers saw the following message:"10 Days of NRA Giveaways - Enter today for a chance to win an auto emergency tool!"
On Dec. 13, the NRA tweeted "Did you hear? Our #facebook page reached 1.7 million "likes" today! Thanks for being a friend!"
Social media users have had mixed feelings about the NRA since Friday's shooting in Connecticut, in which 20 children died along with other adults, the shooter and his mother. Adam Lanza, 20, used three weapons for his rampage on Friday that were all legally registered to his mother Nancy. Connecticut has one of the strictest gun control laws in the country.
On the NRA blog page, users commented as recent as Wednesday about continued gun control laws in the U.S. One user wrote the following:
"I am a gun owner and a member of the NRA I would like for everyone to know this group teachs gun safety Proper storage proper handling of and responsiable gun ownership. They do not teach how to take out a school in 3 easy steps, or how to go Para Military, they and I support the 2nd ammendment and will hold true to it to many brave americans died protecting it."
When another user said "nobody wants to take away the right to own a gun," another Facebook user responded only a few minutes later "I do."
On the Association's Twitter account, users posted comments on the day of the shooting:
"On the tenth day of Christmas the @NRA gave to me, an elementary school slaughter," one user tweeted on Dec. 14."
"@nra Please, never tweet again" another wrote.
An Twitter account under the name Healthcare Activists tweeted "@NRA <---They are posting stuff about a contest while children lay dead from legislation they back. Nice."
NBC News reported that NRA and Facebook have not commented on the Facebook page removal.
