“Gavin Newsom’s dangerous ballot measure threatens to criminalize law-abiding Californians without taking one weapon out of the hands of criminals and terrorists,” the caption under this just released Coalition for Civil Liberties’ YouTube video asserts. “Thousands of sheriffs, officers and prosecutors — our frontline law enforcement officials — are opposed to Newsom’s proposal.” newsweek.com reports that the ad will run on unspecified TV channels. Richard Grenell is the GOP “operative” behind the ads, an NRA-ILA-supported project of California Rifle & Pistol Association. Grenell told newsweek.com that . . .
the group is aiming to upset the traditional Democratic coalition in an effort to defeat the proposal.
What’s more (literally) . . .
A second, nearly identical commercial will be released Wednesday, except the character in the spot will transgender, and that ad will be targeted to areas with large concentrations of LGBT Californians . . .
“Because Gavin’s latest proposal goes too far and tramples on personal freedoms, he has opened up a real opportunity for those of us who believe in more civil liberties,” Grenell told TIME. “Gavin is losing the traditional Democrat coalitions like women, the working class and the LGBT community who are challenging the progressive idea that the government should be the center of our lives.”
This effort reflects a sea change in pro-gun campaigning. While the NRA is largely populated by OFWGs and deep into promoting Republicans (e.g., Donald Trump), their media mavens have been making the move to portraying gun rights as an apolitical issue for some time.
Right answer. Too late for California?