NRA Ad Tries to Scare Gun Owners About New York Liberals, Depicts the Wrong City

Check your facts!


The National Rifle Association released a new election ad today attacking Question 3 on Maine’s November ballot, which would require background checks on most transfers of guns between owners.

The NRA’s ad points out that former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, now a prominent gun control activist and the founder of Everytown for Gun Safety, “is spending $3 million to try and boss Mainers around with Question 3.” The ad opens with a view of a city skyline and the words “The New Yorkers” emblazoned below it. The narrator intones: “The New Yorkers are here and they’re trying to tell Mainers how to live.” There’s just one problem: The skyline in this ad is most definitely San Francisco’s, not New York’s.

Here’s the start of the ad:

YouTube

Here’s SF:

Yurkaimmortal/iStock

Here’s NY:

funnybank/iStock

To its credit, the NRA did remember to add a Statue of Liberty to its version—and yet somehow didn’t notice in the process that the rest of the skyline was wrong, or just didn’t care to use the right one.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate