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NRA slammed for massively insensitive tweet after Oxford school shooting

Tone-deaf tweet defending guns hours after school shooting gets slammed on social media, as users note 'weird timing' and spelling error

The National Rifle Association (NRA) found itself being brutally trolled on November 30, after a tweet just hours after the Oxford High School shooting. As we reported, three students died, while eight others were injured after a 15-year-old opened fire at the school in Michigan. The teen reportedly used a pistol bought by his father just days ago in the shooting and was apprehended with seven rounds still in the weapon.

The three victims have been identified as 14-year-old Hanna St Julian, 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin and Tate Myre, who attempted to disarm the shooter before he died. The incident has been widely condemned, with even Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer weighing in, and saying, "My heart goes out to the families. This is an unimaginable tragedy. I hope we can all rise to the occasion and wrap our arms around the families, the affected children and school personnel, and this community."

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Meanwhile, sympathy appeared to be in short supply at the NRA. Instead of condemning the shooting, the group once again attempted to deflect the blame on guns, with a rather tone-deaf tweet that many on social media were offended by. It's not the first time the group has created controversy, and it's unlikely to be their last. 

'The criminal is the problem'

The Oxford High School shooter reportedly used a 9MM Sig Sauer SP2022 pistol, which his father bought on November 26. It is the 28th school shooting in the US this year, with 20 of them occurring since August alone. That's already nearly triple the 10 recorded in 2020. So far, nine people including eight children have died from these incidents. Yet, despite these facts, the NRA found it appropriate to tweet, "This is proof that the CRIMINAL IS THE PROBLEM. Not the inanimate object. This is really not hard to comprehend." They followed that tweet with a chart, dealing deaths from rifles, hands, and knives. Notable, handguns didn't feature in the data.

That omission was quickly spotted by social media, with many users slamming the group for its "selective" data. One user hit back, "Yes, not at all hard to comprehend when you don't just omit facts that don't fit your narrative." Another tweeted, "Nice fake little chart…but have you heard the latest news ??? Today in Michigan, 3 teens dead & several injured. Guess how they died? A gun." One user mocked, "Weird timing on this. Question: why are shotguns or handguns not included and only rifles are? If you wanted to drastically and artificially skew your results, you could have had a metric for cannons or flintlock weapons."

"And yet other countries don't have anywhere near the per Capita deaths from guns, because it's actually the guns," one person commented. Another noted, "The NRA was so eager to get a talking point out after the gun violence at Oxford High School that they forgot to add in America’s 14,000+ annual handgun homicides and spell weapons correctly." One person replied, "handguns? also number of people killed in mass shootings? Have you ever heard of a mass knifing? NRA is reaching.... again... lol."

At the time of reporting, the NRA has not deleted its tweet, nor has it issued a condemnation of the violence in Oxford.