Rep. Mo Brooks is running in the Aug. 15 special Republican primary for Senate in Alabama. | AP Photo / Bob Gathany/AL.com via AP Brooks defends campaign ad on Scalise shooting

Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks on Monday defended a new ad from his Senate campaign that uses footage of the aftermath of the shooting rampage last month in which House Majority Whip Steve Scalise was wounded and four others were hurt.

Brooks, who is running in the Aug. 15 special Republican primary for Senate, told POLITICO that the ad, which features sounds of gunshots and shouts before playing clips of a Brooks interview, is meant to highlight his support for the Second Amendment.


Brooks said his ad does "absolutely not" leverage the attack, in which the gunman was killed. The ad opens with sounds of shots and text describing the shooting and Brooks using his belt as a tourniquet. It then shows a clip of Brooks being interviewed by reporters on whether the shooting changed his views on gun control. "The Second Amendment, the right to bear arms is to ensure that we always have a republic, so no, I'm not changing my position on any of the rights that we enjoy as Americans," Brooks says in the ad footage.

But Scalise's chief of staff, Brett Horton, tweeted that the spot made his "stomach turn," as Brooks faced criticism for politicizing a tragedy.

"I understand completely. It makes my stomach turn too. It reminds of a moment in my life I hope I never have to repeat," Brooks said.

But Brooks also said his ad is not out of line because Sen. Luther Strange — whom Brooks referred to as “place holder Luther Strange” — has made the Second Amendment a major issue in their upcoming primary. Strange, who has been endorsed by the National Rifle Association, was appointed to fill Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ Senate seat earlier this year and is running in the special election to complete the rest of Sessions’ term.

“I believe that this ad, in a most compelling way, responds in a convincing way that Alabama voters will know that having lived through what I lived through and immediately thereafter being pressed by the news media on the Second Amendment right to bear arms, I stood my ground,” Brooks said, adding that the advertisement “does not attack anybody else in any way.”

Still, other Republicans knocked the ad as going too far.

“I think it’s in bad taste,” said Bill Armistead, chairman of former state Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore’s Senate campaign. “Never use a tragedy for personal benefit.”

