Activist Group Vandalizes Billboard To Read ‘Shoot A School Kid Only $29’

Thursday morning, Las Vegas woke up to a vandalized billboard reading “Shoot a school kid only $29.” Guerrilla art collective INDECLINE took credit for changing the billboard, which originally read “Shoot a .50 caliber only $29.”

In a statement Friday, the activist group acknowledged its involvement in the vandalizing of the freeway-side billboard. A telephone caller, who chose to be anonymous, provided the statement to the Associated Press. The statement said the group aimed to spark debate about the “inadequate gun laws that are currently placing value on assault weapons over that of human life.”

The person said a video of two people wearing dark clothes and scaling the billboard to post the strips with the words “school kids” on was given to ABC-affiliated KTNV-TV.

"It should thoroughly extinguish any claims that were looking to create controversy with no discussion," said the INDELCINE representative. "This is how we are as a country, we are completely divided and were divided on this billboard," KTNV-TV reported.

The representative added, "If someone has a problem with the way this was conveyed I would suggest looking at Americas' tolerance essentially for our school kids and our friends and family getting shot down by these assault rifles in the first place."

The altered billboard was taken down within hours Thursday and an investigation is being conducted by the police, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Public Information Officer Larry Hadfield said.

The billboard was not far from the site of the Las Vegas shooting that took place Oct. 1, 2017, leaving 58 dead and hundreds injured. This incident remains the deadliest mass shooting in the United States by a lone gunman.

INDECLINE’s message comes weeks after 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and killed 17 people. That was the 17^th school shooting this year in the U.S.

Not everyone was thrilled by the message on the billboard. Joel Isola, who survived the October 2017 mass shooting, said it did more harm to the victims of mass shooting.

"Lives were lost and people's families were shaken forever and now it's being pushed as an agenda," Isola said.

The activist group said its members were not looking for a complete ban on guns but wanted to bring about a reform. Battlefield Vegas, the company that was originally advertising on the billboard, did not comment on the incident.

This is not the first time INDECLINE has made a statement about an issue. In 2016, it put up statues of a naked Donald Trump in cities across the country. The statues of Trump, who was the presidential candidate then, had a large gut fully-exposed genitalia and dark stretch marks.