(A representative speaks during the Black Lives Matters' video response to a controversial NRA ad.Screenshot/Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, Dignity and Power Now, The Reverence Project, RISIST, and Defend Movement)
Black Lives Matter activists issued a video response to a chilling advertisement published by the National Rifle Association, and demanded that the NRA take its video down.
"We demand that the NRA immediately remove their dangerous propaganda videos narrated by conservative radio hosts Dana Loesch and Grant Stinchfield," a Black Lives Matter representative says in the video.
The original NRA ad featured dramatic overlaid commentary by conservative media personality and NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch, who urged Americans to join "America's safest place" and called protesters of President Trump members of the "resistance." Business Insider reported that the NRA's video showed footage of anti-Trump protests while Loesch described the demonstrations as "madness" that "shut down interstates and airports," requiring police intervention.
Black Lives Matter's two-and-a-half-minute video begins in a similar fashion to the NRA ad, with a representative speaking forcefully over video clips of police officers, schools, and protests:
"They use their guns to assassinate black people, they use their schools to funnel black students through a school to prison pipeline. They use their state institutions, bought politicians, business conglomerates, and white supremacist domestic terrorists to incite violence over and over again," the speaker says.
But the speaker abruptly stops and changes her tone:
"Wait, hold up. What’s with the aggressive fear mongering video tactics?" she asks, before calming the tone of the video and continuing.
"When the NRA issues a public call to their constituents, inciting violence against people who are constitutionally fighting for their lives — we don’t take that lightly. We know that we are not safe, but we are not scared either. We will continue to produce media, teach students, march, and protest to not only protect the First Amendment as fiercely as the NRA protects the second, but to protect our lives from gun-toting racists," the representative says.
The video ends with a montage of family members of African-Americans killed during encounters with law-enforcement, and the phone number for the NRA, for viewers to call to demand its videos be removed.
The video was produced by the Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, Dignity and Power Now, The Reverence Project, RISIST, and Defend Movement.
The original NRA ad prompted backlash from progressives, and has been referred to as "an open call to violence" and "barely a whisper shy of a call for full civil war."