Forget the softer tone. The National Rifle Association on Thursday returned to the hardcore style of messaging that drew so much derision to the group just last month.
The gun lobby group rolled out an ad that flew in the face of the softer tone the organization struck earlier in the week by once again attacking President Obama’s gun violence prevention plans as elitist hypocrisy.
“So they want to ban high capacity magazines. Not for the security that surrounds the president, congress, Mayor Bloomberg, rock stars, CEOs and wealthy big shots,” the ad’s narrator said. “And the mad men, drug cartels and home-invading killers will still get them from the same black market that sells drugs, stolen cars and everything else that criminals buy.”
“It’s just the rest of us, the law-abiding average people, who will have to defend our families with limited capacity magazines,” the narrator continued.
Obama as well as members of Congress on both sides have said a ban on high capacity magazines should be considered after the massacres in Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., and Tucson, Ariz. But the NRA and its allies have steadfastly opposed limits on magazines, saying it’s unworkable at best and leaves mothers outgunned against home invaders at worst.
There was little new in terms of messaging in the NRA’s latest ad — the group has attacked Obama’s push for gun violence legislation as elitist from the start, an argument that got the group in trouble after it’s first post-Newtown TV ad mentioned the armed security protecting Obama’s daughters. That ad drew criticism from many, including one of the NRA’s own lobbyists.
On Tuesday, the NRA signaled a shift away from the messaging seen in that kind of ad. Politico reported the group had turned to a new firm, GOP messaging house On Message, Inc., to cut new ads with an easier tone. (The Obama administration condemned that as “factually inaccurate.”)
But stylistically, the high-capacity magazine ad pushed out by the NRA on Thursday closely resembled the spot mentioning Obama’s daughters, which Politico reported was made by messaging firm Ackerman McQueen. An AQ representative pointed TPM to the new spot today, before the NRA tweeted it from its official account.
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