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This NRA Recruitment Video Is So Divisive, Even Gun Owners Are Angry

This NRA Recruitment Video Is So Divisive, Even Gun Owners Are Angry

A new National Rifle Association recruitment ad appears to have outraged both gun control advocates and gun owners alike, even leading critics to launch a petition urging Facebook to delete the “inflammatory” message for “inciting violence.”

The minute-long clip, posted on the NRA’s FB page earlier this month, features Dana Loesch of TheBlaze who begins: “They use their media to assassinate real news. They use their schools to teach children that their president is another Hitler. They use their movie stars and singers and comedy shows and award shows to repeat their narrative over and over again.”

The ad continues with Loesch declaring that “their” former president advocated resistance, leading to protests that “bully and terrorize the law-abiding.”

“The only way we stop this, the only way we save our country, and our freedom, is to fight this violence of lies with a clenched fist of truth,” the spokeswoman concludes. “I’m the National Rifle Association of America and I’m freedom’s safest place.”

Many commenters, including some who say they are gun owners, blasted the ad for being “incendiary” and “divisive” while “encouraging violence.”

A 50-year-old former Republican from the Midwest replied to the video on Facebook, calling it “Orwellian nonsense designed to make you cheer and fist pump for your ‘freedom’ like dogs drooling when the bell gets rung.”

The commenter, who asked not to be named because he feared for his safety, said he owns firearms for his own protection and for occasional target practice. He told HuffPost that despite the negative reaction to the video in some corners, he suspects it won’t damage the NRA.

“I don’t think much of anything can actually backfire on them, to be honest,” he said. “Much of their core membership seems impervious to logic and reason, sadly.”

The NRA did not immediately return a request for comment on the criticism.

Watch the video above.

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