Yahoo News NRA suspends advertising for just 8 days after Las Vegas massacre
The National Rifle Association is planning to suspend advertising for just eight days following the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.
A tweet by Medium Buying LLC revealed that the powerful lobby group had postponed spending due to begin on Tuesday following the Las Vegas shooting.
At least 59 people were killed and 527 injured after a gunman, named by police as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, fired on concert-goers at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel.
VA-Gov: NRA-PVF TV ad spending that was scheduled to start tomorrow has been postponed. New start date is 10/10.
— Medium Buying (@mediumbuyingllc) October 2, 2017
This new NRA ad is barely a whisper shy of a call for full civil war. https://t.co/N33s2KyvVz
— Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) June 28, 2017
Police found an arsenal of 42 firearms, explosives and ammunition in his Las Vegas hotel room and home in Mesquite.
The attack, which is the 338th mass shooting of 2017 according to a website that monitors gun deaths, has prompted renewed calls for gun control.
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The Mass Shootings Tracker defines mass shootings as incidents in which four or more people are killed or injured by gunfire. This includes the gunman.
It notes that in September, 31 people were killed and 122 were injured in mass shootings in the country.
In the US, the death rate from all gun homicides is about 31 per million people, according to the New York Times. By comparison, in the UK the death rate from all gun homicides is 0.9 per million people.
The NRA is one of the most powerful bodies in the US. As the Washington Posts reports, since 1998, it has donated $3,555,194 (£2,682,749) to current members of Congress.
In the wake of the attack, Hilary Clinton tweeted: “The crowd fled at the sound of gunshots. Imagine the deaths if the shooter had a silencer, which the NRA wants to make easier to get.”
“Our grief isn’t enough. We can and must put politics aside, stand up to the NRA, and work together to try to stop this from happening again.”
In an emotional speech, chat show host Jimmy Kimmel called out politicians supported by the NRA.
He said they “should be praying for God to forgive them for letting the gun lobby run this country, because it’s so crazy.”
Our grief isn't enough. We can and must put politics aside, stand up to the NRA, and work together to try to stop this from happening again.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 2, 2017
Theresa May said that Britons struggled to understand the US’s attitude towards guns.
Speaking to LBC she said: “I think we can’t understand it because of course we have a different approach to guns. We have very strong gun laws here, and we tightened the gun laws initially after Dunblane because people saw the atrocity which took place there and we took action as a government.
“But of course America has a different approach to guns. It’s up to them to see what they will do now, but I think most people in the UK will say ‘If you look at what’s happened here, surely they will want to do something’.”
