On Wednesday, Aug. 9, Twitter user Ismail Kidd Noorzai snapped and shared a photo of a Walmart display selling guns like back to school supplies. 

According to local news station KFSM, the location of the Walmart store was narrowed down to Evansville, Indiana. In the photo, there is a sign above an encased gun rack that reads "Own the school year like a hero." It appears that the case is holding assault rifles but that isn't clear. The photo sparked a maelstrom of criticism directed at the megastore with many users asking for an explanation to how this could slip through the cracks. 

Critics claim that the display fuels the ongoing gun violence epidemic in the United States. According to Five Thirty-Eight, there are more than 33,000 annual gun deaths in America. (This figure doesn't include mass shootings like the Emmanuel AME shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut and others that have dominated headlines in recent memory.) In 2016, there has been 15,075 gun deaths and 30,615 people injured per data from the Gun Violence Archive. 

Within hours of the photo going viral, the store released an official statement providing an explanation for the mishap.

On Twitter, Walmart replied directly to the tweet stating that the sign was "horrible" and that the store removed the sign as soon as they were made aware of it.

But it is disheartening that this had to happen in the first place. 

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