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On 9 August 2017, Twitter user Ismail Kidd Noorzai posted a photograph to his Twitter page showing what appeared to be a display of firearms for sale at Walmart, with a sign directly over the display reading, Own the school year like a hero: The image ignited a round of internet outrage, with its placement causing some viewers to link it to mass shootings in schools that have become somewhat endemic throughout the United States: Reports about the image took off in both mainstream news outlets and liberal blogs. Initially, Walmart representatives took to the chain's official social media channels to say the store location captured in the photograph had been ascertained as Evansville, Indiana, and they assured concerned Twitter users that they had removed the sign from the gun display area in that store: But the next day, Walmart spokesman Charles Crowson told us the company was still investigating whether the photograph was authentic, and they said the store location had not been definitively determined (but was not Evansville): Noorzai told us he initially stumbled across the picture on Reddit on a board dedicated to humor, in which some readers opined that the image was a prank perpetrated by a store employee or a worker mistak: The phrase own the school year like a hero is associated with a back-to-school advertising campaign and does not have any connection to firearms sales. It is unclear whether the sign was placed near the display by mistake, or if the perspective of the photograph made it appear to be closer to the gun display than it really was. Crowson sent us Walmart's official statement on the incident, which says:
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