Celebrities and non-celebrities alike took to Twitter immediately to blast the National Rifle Association (NRA) for proposing that we greatly multiply guns in schools by hiring armed guards and enabling all teachers to carry firearms as a way to prevent more school tragedies.
The NRA had been conspicuously silent in the week following the Sandy Hook Elementary bloodbath in Newtown, Conn., where Adam Lanza used two handguns and an assault rifle to kill 20 children and seven adults, including his own mother, before turning the gun on himself. The NRA press conference did not call for compassion or sympathy towards the victims, as many had expected, but to sell more weapons to offset the billions of weapons that are already on the market and on the streets. And this angered many Americans.
Some of the wittiest responses came from non-celebrities, such as from Tom Hamilton, who wrote:
Really #nra , your answer to gun violence is more #guns ? Should we stop a flood by adding more water?
— Tom Hamilton (@tombhamilton) December 21, 2012
Another respondent on the NRA hashtag said that proposing more guns in school did not matter at all in previous school massacres:
RT.@a_picazo “Columbine High School had an armed guard … Virginia Tech had an armed police force …” bit.ly/TcqETG#p2 #tcot #nra
— Mattison (@Mattison) December 21, 2012
One respondent noted that, if God does give out signs, to make note of the fact that the NRA press conference happened at exactly the same time that a mass shooter killed three people and shot a state policeman in Pennsylvania.
Another person said this about proposing armed guards:
Sadly, almost every bank in the US has an armed guard present and yet there are more than 5,000 bank robberies per year. #nra — Mindy Lanie (@MindyLanie) December 21, 2012
Finally, Star Jones, the celebrity attorney and former co-host of the ultra-popular “The View” daytime talk show, had this to say:
The only thing that stops a BAD GUY with a GUN..is to prohibit him from gaining access to a gun in the first place! You complicit #NRA jerk.
— Star Jones (@StarJonesEsq) December 21, 2012
Take a look at what other celebrities had to say in response to the NRA’s first press conference following the Sandy Hook tragedy:
