The Second Amendment Foundation has launched an ambitious campaign to promote personal protection, calling it Equal Gun Rights (EGR), with a short video and website that simply says Self-defense is a human right.
Because of its timing, SAF's launch could be considered a response to the anti-gun campaign initiated by Organizing for Action against lawmakers who oppose President Barack Obama’s gun control agenda. The Equal Gun Rights website has an on-line petition to support firearms rights for all.
As reported by this column, OFA is a group founded by the president and some of his “close advisors” that grew out of his 2012 campaign organization. They are targeting 16 Republican lawmakers with online advertising that pounds them on their pro-rights resistance.
SAF’s new EqualGunRights.com effort fights back on a visceral level, with actors depicting citizens from different parts of the country commenting on their local gun laws. It offers a stark contrast between people who live in regions with laws that enable citizens to exercise their rights, and those who reside in areas with restrictive gun laws which typically have larger minority populations, including Chicago, Washington D.C. and New York City.
SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb had been working on the gun rights and personal protection campaign for several days, but when OFA launched its on-line attack against the pro-gun Congressional Republicans, he scrambled to get the EGR effort up and running to provide a quick counter strike.
“You won’t see President Obama or his anti-gun cohorts admitting it,” he said in a prepared statement, “but the simple fact is that gun control has historically disarmed far more African Americans than any other demographic. And, as you can see in our video spot, African-Americans and other minorities are still the primary victims of gun control laws in America.”
It appears the OFA effort is part of a larger liberal push for gun control. Another attack ad, against pro-gun Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, has been launched by BoldProgressives.org. A group calling itself the Progressive Change Campaign Committee is running a 30-second anti-McConnell spot featuring a man identified as Gary Nutt of Cub Run, Ky. Introducing himself as a Vietnam veteran, Nutt criticizes McConnell for opposing a ban on so-called “assault weapons” because they are not necessary for deer hunting.
Armed with a scoped Marlin lever-action rifle, Nutt says he only fired his rifle once last fall.
“One shot, one deer,” he says. “But I’d be a pretty bad hunter if I needed an assault rifle to shoot that buck.”
The SAF Equal Gun Rights video spot was produced in collaboration with Political Media. The EqualGunRights.com (EGR) message highlights the disproportionate impact of gun control laws on African-Americans, Latinos and other minorities, and how it leaves large groups unable to defend themselves, their families, or their businesses.
Gottlieb said it is “unconscionable that…so-called progressives are quietly permitting laws to stand that disproportionately diminish the rights of minorities.”
“The late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was blocked by segregationists when he tried to get his concealed carry permit,” he recalled, “because they knew equal strength to defend oneself leads to societal equality.”
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