A sheriff in Florida seems to have found it necessary to warn people not to shoot their guns into Hurricane Irma. “To clarify, DO NOT shoot weapons @ #Irma. You won’t make it turn around & it will have very dangerous side effects,” the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office, located north of Tampa, wrote on Twitter Saturday.
The warning came as more than 27,000 people on Facebook said they would attend an event called “Shoot at Hurricane Irma,” while 54,000 expressed interest. “LETS SHOW IRMA THAT WE SHOOT FIRST,” reads the description of the group that was started by a 22-year-old.
“The response is a complete and total surprise to me,” Ryon Edwards, who founded the group, 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.” He also told Time he was “amazed that anyone coud see it as anything else than a joke.”