By Dave Workman
Senior Editor
While the Academy Awards ratings reportedly sagged more than 15 percent from last year’s program, a leading national gun rights organization appeared to soar with a social media jab at anti-gun celebrities who promoted their agenda while under the protection of bodyguards and a legion of armed police.
The Second Amendment Foundation appears to have scored a home run when it launched a meme on Facebook that observed:
Celebrities Attending The Academy Awards Will Wear
An Orange Anti-Gun Pin From Bloomberg’s Everytown
Will Their Armed Guards Wear One Too?
According to SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, this message reached more than 85,500 people and garnered 1,400 “Likes” on Facebook. It was shared more than 1,000 times and there were more than 215 comments on the morning following the awards program.
Academy Awards host Jimmy Kimmel was being criticized for practicing partisan politics, which included a reminder about a March 24 student protest supporting gun control in Parkland, Florida where the Feb. 14 high school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School occurred.
Leading up to the event, several news agencies made passing reference to the beefed-up security, which included hundreds of police officers.
According to Fox News, the Academy Awards program ratings dropped 15.6 percent from the 2017 show, also hosted by the unapologetically partisan Kimmel. The show had an 18.9 rating and 22.4 million viewers according to The Wrap, quoting Nielsen’s overnight numbers.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail reported that Google inquiries about National Rifle Association membership had soared “roughly 4,900 percent since the week before the…shooting.”
TGM reached out to the NRA about membership, but there was no immediate reply.
But Gottlieb noted that there has been an uptick in life memberships for SAF, which is a non-profit that concentrates on education and litigation.
Some of the replies from other social media users are priceless. One man suggested that the actors and actresses take all the money they spend on glamorous clothing and use it to help troubled kids who become school shooters. Another wondered whether Hollywood would “remove all depictions of firearms in movies” from now on.