The National Rifle Association’s social media accounts have gone dark following the massacre at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Conn.
Since the tragic shooting Friday, the NRA has declined to comment, rejecting invitations to speak from msnbc and other networks. That media blackout extends to the powerful gun lobby’s social media accounts: The group has gone silent on Twitter, suspending the NRA’s 10 days of Christmas giveaway, and un-published its Facebook page.
Roughly ten hours after the shooting, Ad Week first noticed that links to the NRA Facebook page—which boasted topping 1.7 million members just days before—had been unpublished. TechCrunch reports that Facebook did not take the page down, so the group presumably removed the page itself to avoid the inevitable fights that would have occurred on its walls.
The Twitter account has stayed silent since Friday morning, at 9:36 a.m.—around the same time shooter Adam Lanza forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School, murdering 20 students and 6 adults before killing himself.
Many within the NRA ranks in the Congress have also stayed silent, Meet the Press reached out to all 31 pro-gun Senators in Congress and all declined to appear on the show.
The NRA’s A-rated Senator Sen. Joe Manchin became the first politician to publicly break ranks in the wake of the massacre, appearing on Morning Joe this morning and calling for an assault weapons ban. “Seeing the massacre of so many innocent children has changed everything,” he said. “Everything has to be on the table.” Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough, a former Florida Congressman with a high rating from the NRA, also expressed his change of heart in the aftermath of Sandy, making an impassioned speech in support of an assault weapons ban.
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