Following Trump’s “Second Amendment People” Comment, NRA Continues To Air Ad Politicizing Clinton’s Secret Service Protection

A new ad released by the National Rifle Association criticizes Hillary Clinton for being protected by the Secret Service with the false claim that Clinton receives protection even though “she doesn’t believe in your right to keep a gun at home for self-defense.”

The NRA ad launch coincided with comments made by GOP nominee Donald Trump that were interpreted as a call for political violence. During a rally in North Carolina, Trump said, “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is.”

Clinton has never said she opposes gun ownership. In fact, Clinton’s campaign website says she “knows that gun ownership is part of the fabric of many law-abiding communities.”

And in recent months Clinton has repeatedly said that “legitimate” Second Amendment rights should be “protected” while she advocated for laws to keep guns from people prohibited by law from owning guns. She has also explained that you can call for stronger gun laws “and still support the right of people to own guns.”

PolitiFact has rated the claim Clinton “wants to abolish the Second Amendment” false, finding “no evidence of Clinton ever saying verbatim or suggesting explicitly that she wants to abolish the Second Amendment, and the bulk of Clinton’s comments suggest the opposite.”

CNN.com reported that the NRA is spending $3 million on an ad that began airing the morning of August 9 in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada, and North Carolina. In the ad, a narrator says that Clinton has been “protected by armed guards for 30 years, but she doesn’t believe in your right to keep a gun at home for self-defense,” adding, “An out-of-touch hypocrite, she’d leave you defenseless.”  According to CNN, the ad “shows the back of a woman who looks like Clinton walking onto a private airplane while what looks to be the US Secret Service surrounds her.”

The NRA, which has endorsed Trump, quickly launched a defense of Trump’s controversial comments that involved rewriting what Trump said. While Trump seemingly made reference to “Second Amendment people” doing something about Clinton’s judicial nominations after an election, the NRA wrote that Trump was “right” that if Clinton is elected, “there’s nothing we can do” about her judicial picks. (The NRA previously stayed silent after organization board member Ted Nugent called for Clinton to be hanged and when he shared a fake video of Clinton being shot.)

On July 28, the NRA released an online ad targeting Clinton with the same false attack on her protection by the Secret Service. That ad included stills that indicated who was part of Clinton’s security detail:

The NRA’s last substantial ad buy, which totaled $2 million, was filmed in violation of federal policy at a military cemetery and attacked Clinton over the 2012 Benghazi, Libya, terror attacks. Veterans groups slammed the ad, with a Veterans of Foreign Wars national spokesperson saying, “Don’t use our dead to score political points.”

According to ProPublica, prior to the launch of the new ad, the NRA has made more outside expenditures opposing Clinton than any other group, totalling $4.85 million so far.