It’s been a long time since I’ve paid attention to the Super Bowl. I think the last time I did was when the Broncos were playing in 1998, and that was listening to it on the car radio as I drove back to Albuquerque from Phoenix after doing a home show. (The fun part of that drive was picking up the game as it was being broadcast by KTNN out of Window Rock, Arizona, and the commentary was in Navajo.)
Last night was no exception. I didn’t really care who won, and I really didn’t care about all the hype and buzz about the halftime show and the commercials that will be played over and over again. But there was one ad that Rick at SFDB pointed out that was worth watching.
Okay, that’s good. Plain, simple, and makes its point. No CGI, no risky language, no sexism, no objectifying of genders, and a message worth broadcasting to an audience that probably contains its fair share of members of the NRA.
(Let the record reflect that Mr. LaPierre has done a complete 180 on his view on universal background checks. He now thinks they are a sign of impending doom from an encroaching government that is bound and determined to disarm America. He doesn’t say exactly why he’s flip-flopped on this reasonable idea, but I have a feeling it has less to do with the practicality of it — in 1999, the idea of universal background checks done over the internet was in the same realm as a jet pack for everyone — and more to do with who’s sitting in the Oval Office.)
One Super Bowl ad is not going to change the minds of millions of Americans and make them in favor of universal background checks. It doesn’t have to. The overwhelming majority of Americans — and NRA members — already approve of the idea. So the ad itself isn’t really an attempt by Mayors Against Illegal Guns to win people over to their point of view. It’s basically an appeal to a very small but vocal minority of gun-strokers who think that anything that smacks of “well regulated” is the end of Freedom. So far, they’re the ones who have been the loudest voices against anything to do with gun control, gun safety, and gun sanity.
This one ad won’t change them, but it may isolate them and make it clear that they’re the ones who are the targets.
FWIW, it only ran in the DC metro area.
True, but it’s all over the web now, and I’ll bet MAIG was counting on that.
“Let the record reflect that Mr. LaPierre has done a complete 180 on his view on universal background checks. He now thinks they are a sign of impending doom from an encroaching government that is bound and determined to disarm America.”
Or… it could be that the rumor circulating that LaPierre’s draft deferment was due to a nervous (read as psychological) disorder. If he was too nervous for the service it follows that he is too nervous to own a firearm. ? Maybe?