The National Rifle Association shut down a key Twitter account last summer in the aftermath of the Aurora, Colo. theater shootings. On Saturday, one day after the unthinkable shootings at a Newtown, Conn. elementary school, the NRA took a more drastic measure by deactivating its Facebook page after celebrating getting to 1.7 million fans on the social site earlier in the week.
While the group has not commented since Friday’s tragedy, it appears to have staked out a strategy to take its brand out of the social media picture in the wake of a mass-shooting news event. Given its guns-rights cause, the social media buzz after such events seems to be an unenviable conversation for the org to partake in. The NRA’s chief Twitter account, which has doubled in followers to 63,000 since the Aurora shootings, has been silent since tweeting out a holidays giveaway contest early Friday.
I just have two points to make here. The first is to point out that running and hiding is great example of the cowardice of the gun nut. You don’t “need” a dozen guns with a few thousand rounds of ammo if you’re endow with even a sliver of courage. Having a gun on the nightstand is the adult equivalent of sleeping with the lights on.
The second point is a little more important. I’ve pointed out that this is what pro-gun-lobby politicians have been doing as well. They’ve all gone into hiding, so as not to embarrass the cause by making stupid arguments in favor of gun ownership. Not all have, obviously, but the wiser majority.
What this also means is that these politicians plan to do nothing. They have no solution to the massacre after massacre after massacre. In fact, they have no interest in finding a solution. The status quo serves them fine, so long as the blood lobby keeps throwing money at their campaigns.
The NRA needs to be defanged the way Grover Norquist or the religious right have been. We know it can be done, we just need to keep the debate going.
