The gun lobby’s leadership is getting desperate. They see the same polls we do — they know that the positions they advocate for are not popular with the public. So what they lack in facts, they try to make up for in fear.

Twice this week, the gun lobby and its allies made race-baiting comments that should alarm us all. First, the National Rifle Association released a video meant to incite violence, playing on deep-seated racial fears. Then, Sarah Huckabee Sanders suggested on behalf of the White House that a lack of morality among Chicagoans is what’s causing the city’s gun violence crisis.

There’s no mistaking the purpose of these tactics: they’re meant to drive fear and incite violence. By dog whistling white supremacists and vigilantes, the NRA — the largest outside donor to Donald Trump — is attempting to ignite a culture war. They’re trying to convince Americans to take up arms against people from other races and political parties. In turn, they’ll sell more guns.

Gun manufacturers are losing money — the Trump slump in gun sales is in full effect. As a result, NRA leaders are doubling down on a wager that rhetoric and racial division will bolster the profits of gun manufacturers. Thus the NRA’s new ad featuring Dana Loesch, an infamous NRA attack dog and right wing pundit for The Blaze.



The one-minute propaganda video features photographs of perceived bastions of progressivism — from the New York Times building to the Hollywood sign — next to harrowing images of street violence and footage from the Women’s March. During the ad, Loesch claims “the only way we stop this, the only way we save our country and our freedom, is to fight the violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth.”

Last year, Loesch starred in a similar ad for the NRA, suggesting women buy guns in order to end domestic violence and sexual assault. Beyond the twisted victim-blaming baked into that argument, the NRA leadership knows full well that a gun in a home in a domestic abuse situation makes it five times more likely a woman will be shot and killed. We live in a country where every month 50 women, on average, are shot and killed by intimate partners.



But facts don’t stop NRA lobbyists or Loesch. Whatever the facts are, they’ll say the opposite — with impunity.



During the Conservative Political Action Conference, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre — Loesch’s boss — said, “Right now, we face a gathering of forces that are willing to use violence against us. The left’s message is absolutely clear. They want revenge. You have to be punished. They say you are what is wrong with America and now you have to be purged.”



NRA leaders have a long history of leveraging paranoia and politics to sell the solution that more guns and fewer gun laws will make America safer. It’s gaslighting at its worst: saying guns will solve gun violence is akin to saying more water will help someone who’s drowning.

America has a high rate of gun violence precisely because we have something no other developing nation does — a gun lobby. Yet NRA leaders are attempting to trick Americans into supporting their failing “guns everywhere” agenda by encouraging violence against a threat that does not exist.



Fortunately, Americans aren’t buying what the gun lobby is selling. A new study published by Pew shows an overwhelming majority of Americans support policies opposed by the NRA, like background checks on every gun sale. And a Quinnipiac poll out this week determined that 57 percent of voters surveyed believe it’s too easy to buy a gun in the United States, and a majority of voters said that if more people carried guns, America would be less safe.

That same poll found that 79 percent of American voters surveyed believe the way people talk about politics in the U.S. today contributes to violence. That’s what NRA leaders are banking on: that their violent rhetoric will result in the fear of one another, which will lead to more Americans buying guns.



It’s sick and cynical. Americans must roundly reject the hateful and divisive politics of the NRA leadership. We must use our voices and votes to shrink the power of the gun lobby in our Capitol and statehouses.



Americans are being threatened — not by one another, but by those who seek to profit from dividing us.