Protestors claimed the NRA kills children, here’s why they’re wrong

Protestors descended on Publix stores across the nation Friday, following the lead of the “March For Our Lives” activist David Hogg, to stage a “Die-In” protest.

The whole idea for the protest started when Hogg tweeted:

.@Publix is a #NRASellOut
In Parkland we will have a die in the Friday (the 25th) before memorial day weekend. Starting at 4pm for 12 min inside our 2 Publix stores. Just go an lie down starting at 4. Feel free to die in with us at as many other @Publix as possible.

— David Hogg (@davidhogg111) May 23, 2018

The tweet was in reference to Publix having donated more than $650,000 to Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Adam Putnam‘s campaign since 2017. Putnam is self-described as a “proud #NRASellout.”

Prior to the protest, a Publix spokesman Dwaine Stevens released a statement saying, “We would never knowingly disappoint our customers or the communities we serve. As a result, we decided earlier this week to suspend corporate-funded political contributions as we reevaluate our giving processes.’’

Following the national protest on Friday, video surfaced of one of the individual protests happening in Orlando, Florida.

Publix staff and patrons look on as protestors lay on the ground and protestors chant, “Hey, hey, NRA, how many kids have you killed today?” pic.twitter.com/br8KgCptHx

— Paola Perez (@pdesiperez) May 25, 2018

In the video protestors can be heard chanting, “Hey, Hey, NRA, how many kids have you killed today?”

This chant was quite misguided, and appears to be pushing a similar message that Hogg and other gun control activists have been pushing in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting. They seem to assert the premise that the tragic deaths of school children in mass shootings are somehow caused by the NRA. And that, subsequently, politicians that take money from the NRA do not care about our nation’s children. An untrue sentiment seeing as since the NRA’s founding in 1871, the NRA has killed approximately a total of zero people.

— 0 adults have been killed by the NRA.
— 0 children have been killed by the NRA.

In fact, the NRA has consistently been a “leader in firearms education,” with more than 125,000 certified instructors training roughly 1,000,000 gun owners a year.

Yet, this narrative is still regularly pushed.

And to answer the protestors’ question, on the day of the protest, the NRA killed zero children.

However, one of the organizations that has helped Hogg and others in their “March For Our Lives,” movement, does not have the same track record.

According to a BuzzFeed report, Planned Parenthood was in direct contact and offered support to Giffords, an organization started by former US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords that “was spearheading the national coalition of groups working with March for Our Lives.”

Planned Parenthood killed more than 880 innocent children a day, via abortion, in 2016.

So, may I suggest, if you are going to protest for the life, liberty, and safety of our children, instead of protesting an organization that has killed zero people in its more than 140 year tenure, why not protest the organization that killed nearly 1,000 American children a day in 2016?