If you think that public discourse about gun control is bad for the NRA, its Twitter reputation belies that notion.
In just over a month, the NRA's Twitter presence has swollen from 497,666 on February 11 to an all-time high of 632,106 - a jump of 27% in just over a month. That's a massive jump, as our chart below shows.
The huge jump began in the second half of February, immediately following the the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School that killed seventeen people.
A jump in Twitter followers doesn't necessarily correlate directly back to a show of support for the National Rifle Association, but it does show that its supporters are showing up to what is sure to be an intense digital battle for support.
It's also a meaningful number to the NRA itself, as it has repeatedly encouraged its supporters to not only follow the official NRA account, but also its allies on both Twitter and Facebook.
Today, retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens created a social media tweetstorm when he published an open-ed in The New York Times titled "Repeal the Second Amendment." In the article, Stevens calls the Second Amendment a "relic of the 18th century".
As of publishing, "Repeal the Second Amendment" was trending on Twitter.
Related:
- Should Teachers Carry Guns In School? A video debate on sister site / app MicGoat