Friday, June 30, 2017

How Is The New NRA Ad Any Different?

The NRA put out a recruitment ad in April that is suddenly going viral, and a lot a of people are concerned about its message that basically says the only way to prevent liberals from taking over is to buy a gun — lots of them — and backed it up with images that evoke Nazi propaganda against the Jews in the 1930’s.

This is nothing new from them.  In fact, compared to the rants of Wayne LaPierre, their usual mouthpiece, it’s fairly tame; instead of labeling the police “jackbooted thugs,” they just show pictures of them over the calm narration of Dana Loesch.  Perhaps that’s what’s bothering people; the NRA is trying the “chilling” approach.

Whatever.  It’s just a new ploy.  They’re still nothing more than the marketing arm of the gun industry.

Bonus Track: Charlie Pierce:

Look, free speech and all that. If Loesch and her unhinged boss want to sound like the Khmer Rouge, or like Franco, in front of the whole nation for the purposes of selling more weaponry, well, that’s a sad fact of life here in the United States of America. (Still waiting for them to get outraged at the police killing of law-abiding gun owner Philando Castile; Loesch showed more sympathy for Cliven Bundy’s cows.) But this kind of thing, from an organization with outsized political clout at all levels of the government, tends toward incitement. Also, in the immortal words of the late Charlie Skinner, “the clenched fist of truth” is some huckleberry bad writing.