Noir -- a weekly program aired by the National Rifle Association as part of its efforts to reach a younger audience -- has run two segments that fetishize an assault weapon as an attractive woman.

Over the past year the NRA has launched a number of initiatives to engage with women, minorities, and younger Americans. Noir, a Sunday web series hosted by popular gun blogger turned NRA News commentator Colion Noir, is packaged for a Millennial audience, although the show has been widely mocked by critics as a phony and out-of-touch attempt at messaging.

A segment during the June 15 edition of Noir opened with a black-and-white scene of a stylishly-dressed woman standing in an alley. Doing voice-over work, Noir appeared to describe the woman, ranging from her clothing ( “Her Jimmy Choo's can't be comfortable, but you'd never know it” ), to her intellect ( “Chess, yeah it's a men's game, but when she plays, men pay” ), to her actions ( “Flirts more than you can handle too. She's the kind to tell the bartender how to make her drink” ).

In the final shot, the woman is seen holding a Heckler & Koch MR556 assault weapon and Noir reveals he was talking about the firearm the whole time:

NOIR: Why is she alone on this dark street? On this cold night? You care, but she doesn't. Her Jimmy Choo's can't be comfortable, but you'd never know it. Unaffected elegance. Too cool elegance. Not for you elegance, you say. There's got to be something wrong with her; that attitude, high maintenance, hiding something. She's taller than you can handle. Flirts more than you can handle too. She's the kind to tell the bartender how to make her drink. And Chess, yeah it's a men's game, but when she plays, men pay. Say you don't like her, until she looks your way. She's not easy and she's not flawless. But she's never wasted her time thinking about it. She is the HK MR556.

As Noir explained in the following segment, “It's like the words really do mean what I'm saying in the video. The HK MR556 is that gun that if -- it's like that girl who's unbelievably attractive, she has this presence about her that seems untouchable and she's not apologetic about her beauty. But because of that it's easy to -- and she's largely out of a lot of people's leagues.” One of his guests took the comparison further, responding to Noir's description of the “heavy” and “expensive as hell” gun by saying, “sounds like some of my recent experiences in Vegas like this past weekend ... you still want to have fun with them and they're a little dangerous.” Noir's co-host Amy Robbins laughed, saying “Oh my god.”

Earlier this season Noir used a similar format of objectifying women by reducing them to descriptions of assault weapons in an advertisement for manufacturer Daniel Defense. Gun manufacturer Mossberg and Daniel Defense are the two primary sponsors of NRA Freestyle, which airs Noir and other NRA web series and is the home of the NRA's lifestyle blog NRA Sharp.

The Daniel Defense advertisement, which aired during Noir earlier this season, also features a voice-over of Noir as he seems to describe a woman. At the end of the ad, however, it is revealed that Noir was instead describing the M4-A1 assault weapon:

This ad was panned by Wonkette, which pointed out it aired days after a California man went on a killing spree reportedly motivated by the killer's hatred of women: