Politics

How People Responded to Jeb Bush's Controversial Tweet

February 16th 2016

On Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush tweeted out a photo of a gun with his name engraved on it — captioned simply with the word "America." Now people are responding by posting their own interpretations of "America" on Twitter.

Here's the original tweet from Bush.

The post apparently struck a nerve on Twitter because the former Florida governor became the subject of derision, and his tweet turned into a meme within hours of its publication. People were upset over Bush's suggestion that an engraved handgun represents America, a country that continues to struggle with gun violence and experiences daily mass shootings.

So some Twitter users took it upon themselves to reply to Bush's account with their own "America" posts.

Rather than a gun, users interpreted America as NBA all-star Michael Jordan, a Native American, and some guy in a chair eating junk food, for example.

There were posts that took a more serious stance on the tweet controversy, countering the candidate's vision of America with images from the Sandy Hook shooting, which left 26 people (mostly children) dead in 2012. One user shared a graph showing the stark disparity between gun-related homicide rates in the U.S. and other major countries.

"@JebBush wants you to know that he carries a gun and it represents America," one Twitter user wrote, in a post that featured photos of victims who died in the Sandy Hook shooting. "Here's the problem with that, Jeb."

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