NRA Breaks Silence, Returns To Facebook, Promises “Meaningful Contributions”

Since the terrible shootings at Sandy Hook school in Newtown, the National Rifle Association — the leading gun advocacy group in the US — has been silent. In fact, it even took down its Facebook page. Now the organization is talking again ahead of a Friday press conference it plans. That includes its return to […]

Chat with MarTechBot

Since the terrible shootings at Sandy Hook school in Newtown, the National Rifle Association — the leading gun advocacy group in the US — has been silent. In fact, it even took down its Facebook page. Now the organization is talking again ahead of a Friday press conference it plans. That includes its return to Facebook and sharing with other social media services.

The NRA’s drop from Facebook was perhaps best covered by TechCrunch earlier this week, which documented how the page was hidden from public view. The NRA kept its Twitter and Google+ pages up, perhaps because it’s harder to temporarily hide those and easier to restrict external postings to them. However it didn’t share any information through them.

Now the NRA Facebook page is back:

108 National Rifle Association

The page is dominated by a header highlighting this week’s press conference. The first post on the page since the shootings says that the absence has been due to the organization wanting to allow time for mourning, prayer and investigation before commenting. It also links to an NRA statement about the upcoming press conference and how the group wants to offer “meaningful contributions” to help prevent similar shootings.

On the NRA Twitter account, the first post-shooting tweet links to the same statement:

NRA NRA On Twitter

It’s a similar case with the NRA Google+ account, where the first post-shooting item is about the release:

National Rifle Association Google+

 You can find the full NRA statement here, which says:

The National Rifle Association of America is made up of four million moms and dads, sons and daughters – and we were shocked, saddened and heartbroken by the news of the horrific and senseless murders in Newtown.

Out of respect for the families, and as a matter of common decency, we have given time for mourning, prayer and a full investigation of the facts before commenting. The NRA is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never  happens again.

The NRA is planning to hold a major news conference in the Washington, DC area on Friday, December 21.

Details will be released to the media at the appropriate time.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Danny Sullivan
Contributor
Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land, MarTech, and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Get the must-read newsletter for marketers.