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A screenshot from the NRA's new ad, "Stand and Fight," which criticizes President Obama. (NRA / January 16, 2013) |
For priding itself as an organization that teaches gun safety, why does the National Rifle Assn. keep shooting itself in the foot?
In its latest attempt to drive home the point that President Obama’s plans for tighter gun control are off target, the NRA takes aim at his children.
Instead, the cross hairs remain on the NRA and it’s tone-deaf message. In a commercial running on the organization’s website and on the Sportsman Channel, the NRA accuses the president of being a hypocrite because his daughters have armed guards -- known to the rest of us as Secret Service agents -- while us Average Joe’s aren’t afforded the same security for our kids.
That makes about as much sense as complaining that I don’t get my own private jetliner, bulletproof limousine and meetings with heads of state. Maybe it’s because I’m not the president or in his family, and the likelihood that someone would target me in response to a national agenda is nonexistent.
Go ahead and criticize Obama’s and gun control advocates’ resistance to putting armed guards at every school. Agree or disagree -- there are arguments to be made on either side of the idea. But the NRA loses its credibility when it pretends there’s not the potential for a greater threat when you’re the child of the leader of the world’s greatest superpower.
If that wasn’t enough to get the NRA’s messaging team fired -- no pun intended -- the organization decided that Tuesday, one month to the day of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, would be the best day to release its new shooting app.
Now, the game doesn’t involve shooting people, so they get credit for that. Players can only take aim at targets in indoor and outdoor ranges, with gun safety tips sprinkled in between the levels. But did it have to be a month to the day after the school shooting? Did it have to be just weeks after NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre blamed media, including video games, for fostering a culture of violence? And did it have to be initially available for kids as young as 4?
Unlike some of the weaponry the NRA is hoping to preserve in this fight, the organization’s messaging is shortsighted. If the NRA wants its voice to be considered in this debate, it needs to first get in touch with reality when it comes to the security needs of the president and his family, and then show some empathy toward the victims of mass shootings.
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