Immigrants as Target Practice: the new NRA ad to sway Latino voters

Anti-immigrant groups often play on myths about undocumented immigrants increasing levels of crime in the United States. While all of these allegations have been proved as absolutely false (foreign-born individuals are actually charged with crimes five-times LESS than native-born individuals), the National Rifle Assosiation (NRA) has taken this myth to a new (slightly hilarious) extreme...

While at FCNL we take a strong non-partisan stance on political affairs, the NRA has gone to another extreme with its anti-Obama website called gunbaNObama.com. The NRA has spent hundreds of thousands, if not by now millions, of dollars in tv and radio advertisements bashing Obama for eight votes he has cast during his tenure in the Senate that do not coincide with the NRA's positions. These ads most often focus on hunters, hardcore second amendment advocates, etc.

But their new ad reaches out to immigrants....kind of anyway.

In their efforts to yoke the immigrant vote (and immigration fears???), the NRA is running a spanish language ad speaking out against Obama. They say, I quote (I had to watch the English version of the ad just to make sure this translation was right on target), "Families should be able to defend themselves against rapists, drug dealers and other criminals illegally crossing our borders. But Barack Obama didn't think we should be allowed to use a firearm for self-defense. He even voted to allow the prosecution of people who used firearms to defend their families in their own homes."

Okay, forgetting the Obama bashing, they are trying to get the immigrant vote by saying we should be able to shoot undocumented immigrants????

Most of the time, I am just disgusted with the NRA's militarized and violent images included in their ads. But with this new one...you just have to wonder...WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? As my friends at America's Voice said, do you really think that "making criminals - much less target practice- out of immigrants is...going to fly with Latino voters on Election Day"?