It All Ads Up

As masses of younger protestors march across the land to put an end to civilian ownership of military assault weapons, specialized ammunition and oversized magazines – led by a bevy of highly articulate Parkland survivors – the National Rifle Association is doubling down on its efforts to insure that there are no new laws that materially impair free and open access to guns of all sort and sizes. These protestors are not picking political parties per se; they are just focused on gun control legislation. Never has the NRA faced such a public groundswell against their most cherished positions, exacerbated by the bankruptcy of Remington Outdoor Co, a manufacturer of the semi-automatic AR-15, used in so many of the recent mass shootings. With an estimated 15 million AR-15s in the U.S., perhaps the market was saturated already.

 

The DOJ is throwing little crumbs, like banning that bumpstock attachment that turns semi-automatic rifle into a fully automatic weapon. Congress threw some crumbs to improve background checks and additional research, but so far, the NRA is holding off the attempt to add common sense and logic to our nation’s gun laws. Senators like Florida Republican Marco Rubio – who conveniently is not facing a reelection vote this year – came out squarely against the protesting students, quickly joined by a number of Republican colleagues who toe the NRA line and fear the reprisals from that gun-lobby’s highly effective negative ad campaigns targeting any politician in a red or swing state that espouses any form of gun control. Until these young voters truly take over, I suspect that gun laws will face no significant changes in the foreseeable future.

 

The NRA has now mounted one of its fiercest ad campaigns to counter what they see as too many young people – the voters of the future (many in the next election) – not embracing gun ownership. Maybe one too many “active shooter” drills and watch their peers mowed down? According to the March 23rd Chicago Tribune (repeated in the March 27th Daily Kos), “Immediately after the horror of the February 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., the National Rifle Association halted all of its digital advertising, including ads on YouTube, banner ads on websites, and Facebook ads.

 

“Within four days, though, the NRA had returned in force, increasing its advertising aggressively on Facebook, and spending so widely and indiscriminately that its ads on YouTube showed up on videos for school-age kids. According to a previously unpublished review by Pathmatics, a company that scrapes data from online ads, the NRA spent more than six times as much on digital ads after the Parkland shooting than it did in the weeks before it. Its average daily spending in the 24 days before Parkland was $11,300, according to Pathmatics. In the 24 days after its silent period, that average jumped to $47,300.

 

“Nearly all of the increase was on social media, primarily Facebook, where the NRA took its spending from an average of $4,400 a day in the three weeks prior to Parkland to $34,000 a day in the three weeks after the silence. Florida was heavily targeted in the post-tragedy ad burst. The state went from ninth most targeted in January to third between mid-February and mid-March…

 

“Case in point, one of the YouTube channels where the advertisements have been running is called Kid’s Toys, which has video playlists of kids unboxing toys and dolls. Pathmatics found an NRA ad running before a video of a young girl unboxing a doll from Disney’s popular ‘Doc McStuffins’ show. According to Pathmatics, these ads were not targeted necessarily to gun owners. Anyone of any age could have seen them. The objectives appear to be to drive membership, as Pathmatics’ data show the ad material was created before the shooting. YouTube wasn’t the only youthful site displaying NRA material: Pathmatics’ data show there was an NRA display ad on comicbook.com, a site that covers comics, gaming and anime…

 

“Digital ads are generally more flexible and responsive to events in the news than traditional television or radio ads, said Franz. The Wesleyan Media Project released a study last week showing that references to guns in political ads has been increasing since 2012. ‘The NRA seems to be doing something a little differently with its digital outreach,’ said Franz. ‘Digital content is easier – and faster — to produce.’

 

“There hasn’t been much research comparing the ways that kids and adults respond to online advertisements, but efforts to reach children are ramping up. The kids digital advertising market is expected to hit $1.2 billion and represent 28 percent of all advertising directed at kids, according to a report by accounting firm PwC.” Just plain disgusting! Evil that cannot be justified.

 

The National Rifle Association’s approval ratings are slipping dramatically. Republican “Second Amendment” supporters, many of whom don’t understand that even the most conservative Supreme Court Justices (including the late Antonin Scalia) believe that this Amendment has limits that could very well permit the banning of military-grade weapons, are desperately trying to preserve their artificial voting districts to insure that this liberal view of gun ownership never becomes law. They are even trying to impeach state supreme courts (e.g., in Pennsylvania) that un-gerrymandered such distorted districts.

 

Can this nation change? After all, in poll after poll, most Americans want much stricter gun control. Perhaps, but it is going to take a very, very, very long time. Meanwhile, we are arming teachers and hiring more security guards… while ignoring that our nation’s public school face overcrowded classrooms, crumbling infrastructure, underpaid teachers, book and computer shortages and plunging test scores.

 

I’m Peter Dekom, and this is a nation of special interests supported by seriously distorted voting districts defying the clear will of the vast majority of Americans… rather blatantly and successfully.