Ever since February 14th, it seems like everyone in the country has been talking about the shooting in Parkland, Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. On that sad day, 17 staff and students died at the hands of a lone gunman, Nikolas Cruz, a former student.
While the police caught Cruz alive, that doesn’t change the fact that this has been one of the most violent school shootings in the history of the country with one of the biggest death tolls. Much more now than ever before, the students who survived the shooting as well as major parts of the country are pushing hard for changing gun legislation that will make it much more difficult for this sort of thing to happen again.
The finger has been pointed squarely at the National Rifle Association, even though the group wasn’t directly involved with anything that went on at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14th.
Still, with emotions running especially high in the days after the shooting, it didn’t take very long until a billboard appeared that starkly stated “Kill the NRA” in white against a black background. The mysterious billboard was erected in Louisville, Kentucky and may be the responsibility of Resist 45. The group, which routinely stages demonstrations against President Donald Trump, did have their name on it, after all.
If it was indeed Resist 45’s work, this wouldn’t be the first time. They had already struck in Louisville last fall, switching the rhetoric on another billboard to slant against the President.
The “Kill the NRA” billboard was spotted on the exit to Fern Valley Road near north I-65, so it was in plain view to motorists. It wasn’t long before the billboard began spreading like wildfire on social media, including platforms Facebook and Twitter.
Billboard owner Outfront Media worked to get it “immediately removed,” but the damage had already been done in the eyes of the NRA.
One official reposted a snap of the message on Facebook, writing, “To all American gun owners, this is a wakeup call. They’re coming after us.”
Others too took it quite literally, thinking that the rest of the American public was out to really murder NRA members while most understood that it was a figurative term of speech meant to rally for the depowering of the gun organization.
It certainly makes sense why such a billboard may have been hastily altered. The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas have been very vocal and instrumental in starting real conversations about guns, protection rights, and safety at schools. They even met with the President to share their thoughts.
The NRA also want to see a change that will protect children in schools across the country. This recent school shooting woke the country up more than ever, and it seems that something will change in the coming future. Negative, politically-charged billboards like the “Kill the NRA” one just sidetrack from that goal and create disent when there should be none.
~ Firearm Daily
