Left-wing critics responded with predictable outrage. Conservative talk show host Dana Loesch, speaking for the NRA, issued a powerful video ad calling out the left out for violence. It features footage of protesters rioting, smashing store windows and burning cars.

She never mentions guns. She condemns violence. The left claimed the ad called for violence anyway.

Denouncing Left Indoctrination

What she does is denounce the indoctrinating tactics the left uses to incite violence. “They use their media to assassinate real news,” she says. “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.”

She goes on, “All to make them march, make them protest, make them scream racism and sexism and xenophobia and homophobia; 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. And when that happens, they’ll use it as an excuse for their outrage.”

Loesch ends the video with a call for free speech.

Loesch ends the video with a call for free speech. “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.”

Maybe They Watched a Different Video? Critics Contend the Ad Called for Violence

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) tweeted that Loesch told people to shoot liberals.

I think the @NRA is telling people to shoot us.

Now might be the right time to cancel your membership. pic.twitter.com/PWhHAvRcI3

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) June 29, 2017

An article from the Peacock Panache claimed Loesch “all but justified violence against progressives, protesters, people of color and groups disproportionately killed by police for non-violent offenses.” Tim Peacock wrote that she “managed to blame the victims of those crimes for their own deaths.”

An article in the Huffington Post accused her of promoting a “narrative to promote the NRA’s false claim that protestors ― mainly people of color and women ― are violent.” However, most of the protesters engaged in violence in the short video are white men. Violence on the left tends to attract young, white men. The left is aware of this imbalance. Organizers funded by billionaire left-winger George Soros deliberately recruit young minorities for paid violent protests.

The article goes on, “According to the video, the only way to quell this supposed violence is to meet it with more violence by buying a gun.” Another article in the Huffington Post says the ad “urges ‘law-abiding’ citizens to arm themselves against ‘violent’ protestors.” “According to the video, the only way to quell this supposed violence is to meet it with more violence by buying a gun.” Yet the video never mentions guns.

Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor of California, tweeted that the ad scared him.

Watching this @NRA video sent a chill down my spine–followed by a feeling of sadness & fear that I haven’t shaken… https://t.co/O0hUab6b41 pic.twitter.com/ZYOMxCAJmv

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 30, 2017

The Women’s March, a radical feminist group that claims to represent women, organized a protest in response. It was scheduled for Friday and Saturday outside the NRA’s headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia. Women’s March co-chair Tamika Mallory sent an open letter to the Executive Vice President of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, demanding that the NRA take the ad down and apologize.

Black Lives Matter Responds

DeRay McKesson accused the NRA of inciting violence to protect white supremacy.

Black Lives Matter activists responded forcefully to the video. One of the group’s leaders, DeRay McKesson, accused the NRA of inciting violence to protect white supremacy.

This NRA ad is an open call to violence to protect white supremacy. If I made a video like this, I'd be in jail. pic.twitter.com/LD65yMUMVn

— deray mckesson (@deray) June 29, 2017

Black Lives Matter Los Angeles released a video response. “They use their guns to assassinate black people. They use their schools to funnel black students through a school to prison pipeline,” declares activist Funmilola Fagbamila.

They use their state institutions, bought politicians, business conglomerates, and white supremacist domestic terrorism, to incite violence over and over again. And then they use their new president to enact a ‘law and order administration.’ All to make them shoot first, to make them ask questions later, to make them scream, “I thought he had a gun in his hand!”

The video features relatives of victims who died from gun violence. Again, the NRA was accused of calling for violence. “When the NRA issues a public call to their constituents inciting violence against people who are constitutionally fighting for their lives — we don’t take that lightly.” Fagbamila demanded that the NRA take the video down.

The NRA Refuses to Take the Video Down

The NRA responded with another ad from conservative talk show host Grant Stinchfield. Entitled “We Don’t Apologize for Telling the Truth,” he defended Loesch’s ad. He called the left out on their hypocritical response. “To every member of the violent left who’s having a meltdown over Dana Loesch’s NRA ad — Get over yourself. You people openly call for the assassination of our president and then claim the NRA is inciting violence?”

Stinchfield listed several violent incidents by the left. He called out Mallory. “I’m talking to you Tamika Mallory. Where was your letter to Madonna, Tamkia?” he asks, referencing Madonna’s speech to the Women’s March. Madonna said she’s considered blowing up the White House.

Loesch came out swinging as well in responses over Twitter and during interviews.

Look, it's simple: Don't destroy property and hit people while you're rioting and I won't condemn it in a video. It's that easy.

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) June 30, 2017

Explaining the Left’s Angry Response

PJ Media observes that the uproar over the video was timed to deflect attention from a crazed left-wing gunman who shot Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) on June 14.

The kicker here is that Loesch’s video was released back in April, and only now is the Left attempting this smear. Why? To shift attention away from the fact that a progressive tried to massacre Republicans. You can bet that someone at a Leftist PR agency looked at everything they could, trying to find something suitable to lie about to reframe the Right as violent — not the Left.

The video no doubt incited the left because it turned the left’s oft-repeated mantra against them. Instead of the left blaming the NRA for violence, the NRA blamed the left for violence. The ad also neatly turned around the mantra that police officers wrongfully kill people. Instead, it showed footage of radical leftist protesters attacking the police. Since Loesch did not call for violence, perhaps left-wing critics are really attacking her for representing the NRA.

 

Follow Rachel on Twitter at Rach_IC.