Florida man's whim to shoot at Hurricane Irma attracts over 50,000 Facebook users

Source: Xinhua| 2017-09-10 14:58:02|Editor: Mengjie
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MIAMI, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- A Florida man's whim to shoot guns at Hurricane Irma has attracted more than 50,000 Facebook users who are interested in his crazy idea.

Violent winds and rains from Hurricane Irma began battering the southern tip of Florida Saturday night, with more than 170,000 homes and businesses suffering from power outage.

But Ryon Edwards, 22, took a tongue-in-cheek approach to the storm: creating a Facebook "event" and encouraging people to firing bullets into Irma.

"A combination of stress and boredom made me start the event," Edwards told the BBC. It was also made to "lighten the mood," he added.

The event is due to start at 10:00 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) on Sunday. As of Saturday night, 53,000 people said they are interested in the event and 25,000 said they are going to join.

"The response is a complete and total surprise to me," Edwards told the BBC, "I never envisioned this event becoming some kind of crazy idea larger than myself. It has become something a little out of my control."

Meanwhile, graphics instructing people on how to shoot at the hurricane in the right spot so that the bullet won't be blown back and kill the shooter also sprung up online.

Inspired by Edwards' event, other similar Facebook pages have been created, including one suggesting use flame throwers to scare away the storm.

Despite such crazy ideas, internet users have shown black humor, sarcasm and support for each other in the face of the fury of Mother Nature.

"Don't forget about pets. They are part of the family," wrote one Facebook user, posting a picture of his cat putting one paw on the trigger of a gun, in the discussion section of of Edwards' event page.

"Hey, I know that we're over here with the strong memes, but I wanna say that I appreciate all of you. Some of us aren't going to be here this time next week, some of us will lose homes, businesses, friends and family. But nothing in the world can break the spirit of Florida," wrote another.

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