Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush won Twitter for a few hours on Tuesday after posting a photograph of a handgun under the one-word caption "America."
His tweet prompted a flood of praise, outrage and dripping sarcasm.
The former Florida governor -- who didn't immediately explain the photo of the pistol inscribed with his name -- posted it after visiting the weapons maker FN Manufacturing in Columbia, S.C.
In a September, 2015 survey by The Telegraph, Bush said he was not a gun owner. Still he recieved an A+ rating from the National Rifle Association.
The NRA showed its approval of Bush's gun tweet by following him on Twitter.
Still, liberals and anti-gun advocates assailed and mocked Bush' the "America" tweet, posting weapons icons from other locations, fictional or otherwise.
Bush's tweet received more than 21,000 likes and 21,000 retweets as of Wednesday afternoon.
The meme instantly took off, with others posting different photos under the heading "America," including the wrestler Hulk Hogan playing a guitar, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers pretending to smoke marijuana and former President Ronald Reagan riding a dinosaur.
National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden retweeted Bush's post with the comment "Delete your account."
Others called attention to what President Barack Obama has called an "epidemic" of gun violence.
Several tweets with the caption "America" included photos of the 26 victims of the Sandy Hook School massacre in 2012.