Chilling NRA ad paints protesters as violent, calls on police to ‘stop the madness’

An advertisement from the National Rifle Association, or NRA, released on June 12 continues to attract a great deal of attention and criticism, reports Business Insider.

Both liberals and conservatives have expressed outrage over the video ad's apparent call to violence, notes Vox.

In it, Dana Loesch, conservative radio host and NRA spokesperson, characterizes protesters as a violent and dangerous group and calls on police to "stop the madness."

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As videos of marches and protests, some peaceful and some not, play, Loesch says, "They use their media to assassinate real news. They use their schools to teach children that their president is another Hitler."

She continues, "All to make them march. Make them protest...To smash windows, burn cars, shut down interstates and airports, bully and terrorize the law-abiding — until the only option left is for the police to do their jobs and stop the madness."

Loesch goes on to suggest, "The only way we stop this, the only way we save our country and our freedom, is to fight this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth," and closes with, "I'm the National Rifle Association of America. And I'm freedom's safest place."

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Tamika D. Mallory, organizer of the Women's March, is among the many who has responded unfavorably to the ad.

In an open letter published to Facebook, she writes, in part, "before the Second Amendment was the First Amendment. The advertisement released by the NRA is a direct attack on people of color, progressives and anyone who exercises their First Amendment right to protest...it is unconscionable for a powerful organization like yours to unashamedly peddle an 'us versus them' narrative. You are calling for our grassroots, nonviolent resistance movement to be met with violence."