In the PreventGunViolence-produced video below — currently seen by hundreds — a doctor has to tell a mother that her child has died from “gun violence.” Which happens every three hours. Or does it? Regular readers know that this stat depends on counting “children” up to the age of 18 (many of whom die in gang-related activities) and suicides. So . . .

What would make a heart-tugging pro-gun video?

Don’t get me wrong: the NRA does its best (and Everytown for Gun Safety did a pretty good job, too). But their videos lack the emotional oomph of the antis’ bloody shirt-waving propaganda. (Anti antifa videos ain’t it.) What pro-gun stories would you like to see in video form? How should they be told?

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

81 COMMENTS

  2. If GoPro had been around back in ’06 I could have given you some good “Why you should own a gun” videos.

      • I lived in a shitty neighborhood where there were shootings (most of which didn’t hit anything other than buildings) and fights, robberies, drug deals, stolen goods deals and all sorts of other sketchiness all the time. We spent a fair amount of time on the porch drinking beer and watching the shenanigans and then watching the cops show up and interact with the local hooligans.

        I had a digital camera back then but the video quality was so poor you can’t tell what’s going on in most of it. It’s basically useless other than our commentary on the whole thing and some of the louder arguments between suspects and police. A GoPro would have gotten some decent footage that could be edited together into a “If you lived here you’d want guns” type of video very easily.

        I’d love to have a recording of my talk with this guy from across the street whose business was selling large, stolen appliances like refrigerators and stoves and stuff. He was a pretty smart guy with some interesting insights on life, crime and a bunch of other stuff too. I’d also love to have a video of the time I pulled an AR on my neighbor but I probably wouldn’t share that one… not a video for polite company.

    • Not that I needed convincing, but watching ferguson and Baltimore live, as the cities burned with the cops on the sidelines, was an unforgettable image as powerful to me as 9/11 was. It really showed how fast society can breakdown. I always knew this was possible, and have known for long what the term “9 meals from anarchy” meant. But this was live, in real time, cities collapsing into mob rule. It showed the need of not only a firearm, but the real need to have at least one AR/AK/battlerifle, with a few combat loads.

  4. As with most propaganda of this type, the grieving family is white.

    In real life, and statistically, not nearly so often.

    • Ya, we know what the “child” definition is to the people pulling the ‘stats’ and it’s anyone under 21, that “child” death from “gun violence” is overwhelmingly drug/gang/crime related, or otherwise related to the home/family/ or neighborhood operations of those “children”.

      It’s all a crock of “We’re screwed up, we need to fix you” crap from the gun-grabbers and evil (D).

      • It’s all a crock of “You’re screwed up, we need to fix you” crap from the gun-grabbers and evil (D).

        FTFY, liberals aren’t screwed up only ‘we’ are. Otherwise I agree

        • I don’t think we’ve had an argument over anything here on TTAG that hasn’t stemmed from a broke(D) liberal policy. If you’re a liberal, especially a professed one. The problem is part of you.

        • The predominance of what we argue over AND AGAINST here on TTAG is from the cracked gourd or cankered loins of the POS liberal, progressive, socialist, communist (D). All of that is a scourge begging Armageddon

          If you live in a blue state, you MAY be part of the problem, If you are a liberal, progressive, socialist, communist, globalist, climate-change-ist and (D), or rino, THE PROBLEM IS PART OF YOU, YOU ARE A SCOURGE AN YOUR MOTHER OWES US AN ABORTION.

        • I don’t get it, posts disappear then reappear after you post same or similar again.

          Anywho, it’s worth saying twice.

    • Sorta like how it’s always a white guy breaking in for those theft-alarm commercials? (and secondly how he runs away the instant it sounds off, lol) I always figured they wanted to scare the housewives enough to buy an alarm system, but not enough to buy a gun instead, by featuring a more realistic attacker.

  6. Run some news clips of Venezuela. Or whatever other place people of earth are stupid enough to let communism fester that long. California will be a good candidate as a replacement soon, if Venezuela starts cutting the news feed down there soon.

    Better dead than (communist) red. Kill a commie for mommie.

    Guns are for convincing your stupid neighbors who needed a job (your “government”) that they can either STFU and go to the house or get the 2nd Paragraph of the Declaration of Independence prosecuted on their asses.

  8. There is already a pretty good video floating around. A guy hears a gunshot and finds a young woman dead on the floor. It’s obvious from his reaction that she was someone important to him. He pastes a No Guns sticker on the building. There is then a flashback but, except for the addition of the sticker, nothing has changed. She is still dead. We go through more iterations with more stickers each time. The final one is different. He finds her alive, with a gun in her hand, having killed the guy who murdered her in the previous iterations.

  9. Despite the lefty tilt of Hollywood, most Hollywood entertainment is conservative. When was the last time you saw a heroic protagonist win the day by disarming?

  10. A pretty BlACK teen girl is having a sleepover with her other pretty teen girl friends. An ugly middle aged WHITE MAN wearing a MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN hat underneath Klan sheets breaks in and tries to rape them, but when the BLACK girl’s mother gets home from her 2nd job and her LCR in her purse, she pulls it out and blows the WHITE KKK RAPIST’S brains out and just before he dies, he calls her the N word and the mother blows more of his brains out before he finally dies.

    That’s pro gun stuff that even liberals can love.

      • I think he is playing to the anti-gun stereotypes and then putting anti-gunners in a position where having a gun protects from those stereotypes.

        “No guns for blacks?! You mean you want KKK rapists to win??”

        • Exactly my point. The argument of gun ownership is to protect yourself from people you perceive to be a threat to you whether it’s for wealthy white people that live in Southside Chicago or poor Black people living in Southside Chicago. It’s not so much you own a gun because you are going to use it, it’s to own it and warn others off from attacking you because your reaction will be to use deadly force.

          It’s basically Mutually Assured Destruction. Everyone having a gun makes it unlikely anyone will try to mess with you. It’s what has kept the US from completely devolving into a despot nation, but the issue with the anti gunners is that they’re not anti gun to stop violence, they’re anti gun to oppress the people.

    • KKK is the evil (D). All of the (D)heads out there love to say no, and point to Liberal as F, David Duke from a broke(D) place in LA.

      But you evil (D) had a KKK grand wizard of the KKK, Robert Bird (D)bag WV, as the longest sitting (not “serving” FU) senator IN UNITED STATES HISTORY.

      Abusing, opposing, oppressing, negating, enslaving, blacks and minorities is what the evil (D) are all about, and the MFs go after your unborn with scissors to appease their ruler satan.

  11. Paul Ryan not so look alike (don’t want it to suggest anything) about to push Granny off a cliff, until her 9mm comes out from under her blanket and she blasts him?

    An eighteen year old child (???) saving his/her little brothers and sisters. They come out of hiding as the bad guys are hauled off by the police, when the eldest stopped them from creating some sort of mayhem with an AR, and the second oldest calls the cops?

  12. Where’s the “every minute a child drowns” PSA for “water violence?”
    And these are real children too. Not 17 year old gang members with felony rapsheets.

    • W H A T
      A B O U T
      S C I S S O R
      V I O L E N C E ????

      MF evil (D) can’t kill off kids (especially minority kids) fast enough in sacrifice to their ruler satan.

      If they can pay someone to stick a scissor into the back of a kids head before they draw a breath then they can all dance around the fire.

      They perpetrate this sh_t throughout the world. F ’em all.

      They don’t give a living sh_t about kids and they need to STFU, and be told so at every opportunity.

  13. For better or worse, I don’t think that “Pro-gun” videos really work. After all, there’s a century of motion pictures that featured protagonists who wielded firearms to secure themselves, their families and their various charges from evil men and women who would do them harm, but that doesn’t seem to convince anyone because “Well, yeah, videos aren’t reality”.

    On the other hand, what we can do is create a series of “anti-gun-control” videos, showing just how obnoxious the enforcement of some proposed or actual laws could be. Show a harried NJ police officer slowly going through a Shaneen Allen’s magazine to make sure that there’s not a single hollow point among the rounds in it and that it couldn’t possibly hold more than 10 rounds, for example (officer goes back to his trunk to pull out a box of precisely the right ammunition to fit the gun of the person in the traffic stop). Then, after all that’s done, “Ma’am, do you know why I pulled you over? You were going 42 in a 35”, all as people are clearly going much faster and possibly street-racing behind them, but the officer’s attention is distracted..

    The downside is that it could contribute to anti-police rhetoric, but if handled right it could show that officers, too, would prefer not to waste their time on trivial nonsense and would rather go back to ensuring public safety, all while perhaps opening some hearts and minds that are distrustful of trivial police interactions.

  14. Flash a great set of breasts. Flash a 1911. Repeat.

    People are stupid. Mass marketing is the proof.

    A rock’n set of tits always pulls the heart strings.

  15. Have a series of commercials of actual testimonials by real people and not actors who recount their harrowing near death experiences in which the only reason they are alive now is because of their firearm. Then include the families of all those people who died because they didn’t have a firearm BECAUSE of gun control disarmaments “commonsense” restrictions. Display the gun control laws next to the crying person who lost a loved one, because the Left has bad “feels” about guns.

    This should be as diverse a group as possible since the Lofty’s will deride such a format anyway because of the message of empowerment instead of their message of enslavement. In fact, fill the video with Liberals, Progressives, Democrats, and other such types who have saved their lives and others because of a gun. It might be a tall order, but they are out there.

    • I was thinking along the same lines.

      Portray a mom who dies an agonizing death from a seriously brutal, vicious attack. Then portray her 24 year-old daughter (two years later trying on her wedding dress) who breaks down when she thinks of how her beloved mom will not be there for her on her wedding day.

      Next, portray the same attacker getting ready to attack another mom — strongly implying the same fate but without showing it. Then show her daughter (also two years later trying on her wedding dress) who also starts to cry. Of course viewers immediately assume that she is crying in sadness because her mom must have died in the attack. Suddenly her mom appears and embraces her with a few tears of her own … and we see that both women are crying tears of joy that mom is alive and well and will be with the daughter on her wedding day. End with the joyful mom next to her daughter (in her wedding dress) … and morph the image of the mom back to that attack and show her stopping her attacker with her self-defense firearm.

  16. Are kids that don’t know how to swim that die in a pool victims of nefarious water violence?

    How about:
    Teach your kids to swim or stfu if they drown because you didn’t bother to do your due diligence of preparing them for life.

    All adding “violence” to objects is absolving the human accountability factor.

  17. The commercial would have Eastern European people who saw what their counties turned into behind the ‘Iron Curtain’.

    They would describe how their countries turned Communist, the promise, and then the brutal reality.

    They would then look directly into the camera and say: “Learn from our mistakes. Never give up your guns, Americans. Don’t let that happen here in the USA…””

  18. The anti-gun twits are all about dishonesty and feelz, this is becoming increasingly obvious to almost everyone, even a large segment of normally Democrat voters. This is why the Democrats lost the Senate and now the White House. We are winning and they hate us for it!

  19. Scare fence sitters. Have a series of videos with little or no talking play out a self defense situation up until the exchange of violence. Then have the video cut out, with some catchy words or nagging question pop up on the screen. Make sure the assailant’s ethnicity is never revealed while the victims need to be of different age/sex/ethnic background for each video.

    First one: Shoot it in black and white in a film noir feel. Have an attractive conservatively dressed mid-20’s woman of hispanic/middle-eastern (which one? who cares) ethnicity walking down a street at night away from a convenience store. Have a shadowy figure cross the street and start following her. Woman glances back and speeds up her pace a little, the figure speeds up a little too. Woman looks at a reflection coming off a parked car, sees figure still, and starts running. Shadowman starts running too. Woman turns the corner and hides behind a parked car while pulling out her cellphone. Shadow man rounds corner and begins looking for her. Woman has dialed 911 but is getting the “next available operator” automated message. Shadowman walks around car, switch shots to show the woman, terrified crouched beside car. Subtly have woman reach slowly behind her back, then cut to a black screen with the words “Now what?” in large print. Have them fade away and be replaced by “Arm thyself…”.

    You can do one for a convenience store clerk, a family caught by a home invasion, some one trying to get away from a riot, road rage after a crash, etc. Never give a clear shot of the attackers so the left can’t scream racism. Make the victims minorities in many of the videos. Have the victims either try to call 911 or make it obvious from a conveniently placed TV or Radio broadcast that emergency services are overwhelmed. Always end them before something bad can happen to the victims. Don’t show the victims fighting back but have the last scene leading up to them getting their firearm in some way: a man/women unlocking a safe; opening a drawer or closet; starting to draw from an unseen holster.

    Make fence sitters stop and say, “that could be me”.

    • I like this approach a LOT — especially the “how will it end?” angle.

      In my opinion it really needs to show the victim using their firearm in a simple and effective manner. I say this for two reasons:
      (1) We need to normalize the idea and image of an average person being armed for self-defense.
      (2) We need to show just how simple self-defense with a firearm is … and help people realize that pretty much anyone can do it.

  20. The joy on a group of teenagers’ faces as they bust clay pigeons with some wood finished shotguns. Eye and ear protection on their little noggins, excitement apparent, parents and range masters in the background. Cut to some minority children with big ole grins plastered on their faces talking about bonding with their family and the joys and challenges of the sport. Maybe have a kid say something like “while guns can be used to hurt people and often are used by the gangs in my neighborhood, I’ve learned that they’re just tools. Tools which have helped me gain focus and clarity and grow as an individual. I don’t need to join a gang or resort to violence, I need family friendly activities like this one.” while other kids nod in the background.

    Just thinking about it makes me want to take my girls to the range tonight.

    • It’s easy to wave the bloody flag. Afterall, the fundamental reason we have the 2A is for the ability to band together in militias if we need to defend ourselves against a tyrannical government. Furthermore, fewer people are hunting and more people are picking up guns for self defense.

      But the antis try to claim 1, there will never BE a tyrannical government here in the US and 2, DGUs are a myth and all owning a gun does is hurt everyone around you.

      Show a different side of shooting that they’re not demonizing as much. Something they’re not as pre-wired to reject as a tyrannical government and DGUs. Show the average fence sitter that families have been bonding over guns, hunting, and shooting sports in the United States since…. hell, even before 1776.

      Show inner city kids that guns can be a positive that actually keeps them out of trouble if they go to the range regularly. They’ll draw their own conclusions about keeping trouble at bay at home too.

  21. I’d plan for a 30 second voiceover spot. In the first scenes, I’d break down statistics, as best I could, illustrating the causes of death from mundane causes vs. firearms.

    Then, maybe cut to a young woman, alone in her apartment, with obviously tweaked meth heads loudly trying to break in her front door.

    The woman is visibly scared but draws her firearm. The video abruptly goes black and the sound of the door giving way is deafening.

    Final title would say something to the effect of “Law-abiding citizens lives matter”.

    • Glock ran something like this a couple years ago, was pretty good. And in typical glock fashion it was very well produced

  22. Something else that needs to be communicated out to the masses in some meaningful way, is the fact that there are 3X as many DGU’s in the US every year than there are Homicides/accidental/unintended/suicide by firearms. Those are the ones that are known about/reported. There are likely many more that go unreported by people who did not actually have to discharge their weapons to scare off an attacker.

  24. it should be the exact same setup as the anti-gun video but instead the doctor should come out and say “well we think she will be ok, there was no need for the rape kit since she was armed and stopped the suspect before he could get to her. she’s coming home.” and show the two parents hug while you can see they are both carrying.

    • Unfortunately, I doubt you can arrange for a particular video to directly follow an unrelated video, or that would be a great idea.

      • huh? they ARE related. im not sure why you would think a particular situation is impossible to capture on video, especially when its an ad/PSA.

  25. How about footage of the Rodney King riots where LA’s finest won the “First To Flee” Award.
    Coupled with footage of the few heavily armed Asian store owners who managed to save their businesses from being looted and torched.

  26. EXTERIOR HOUSE, MIDNIGHT, no exterior or interior lights on

    Camera starts in wide shot of TPYICAL SUBERBAN HOME, slowly pushes in throughout shot. Four MASKED FIGURES are seen moving slightly towards the red FRONT DOOR, looking around cautiously, one holding a BAG, 2 one holding a KNIFE, one holding a BAT; clearly there for no good.

    One of the MASKED FIGUES appears to work the lock and the FRONT DOOR opens, all MASKED FIGURES rush in and door is shut behind them.

    The camera continue to push in towards the front door.

    Several seconds of quiet, followed by sounds of things CRASHING, a sounds of a STRUGGLE, a voice of a woman can be heard saying “WHAT IS GOING ON? WHO ARE YOU?” followed by MUFFELED SCREAM and more sounds of STRUGGLING.

    A female child’s voice is heard, “Mommy? What’s going on?”, MUFFELED CHIDL’S SCREAM followed by sounds of THUMP and a BODY HITTING THE FLOOR.

    The camera continues to push in to the front door.

    More sounds of STRUGGLING, SOBBING, things being KNOCKED OVER.

    Camera reaches door.

    Cut to black.

    Text: WHEN SECONDS COUNT, THE POLICE ARE MINUTES AWAY.

    Text: YOU ARE YOUR BEST FIRST LINE OF DFENSE

    Cut back to EXTERIOR HOUSE, MIDNIGHT, POLICE mill about, PARAMEDICS wheel out 2 BODIES, clearly deceased, distraught HUSBAND being held back, clearly “loosing it”.

    Cut to black

    TEXT: The 2nd Amendment isn’t there just to protect from governments.

    Note: the time of commercial will be dictated by the long push-in… the longer, the better.

    (anyone who wants to produce this, feel free to use it)

  27. The liberal, urban, upper class gun banners love to push their pet project. Meanwhile, the opioid epidemic reaches new heights, Not that they would know or particularly care.

    • Dammit…I read all the way down here looking for a John Wick comment. I cant watch either movie without buying something new.

  29. Videos like the NRA’s “Hillary wants to take women’s guns” commercial, depicting DGUs and DGU statistics in a dramatic “every 3 minutes” fashion (both lives saved by them and lives lost because the victim was disarmed by the government), and “it has happened here” videos going over every populace that has been disarmed and abused in American history (blacks under Jim Crow and slavery, American Indians, and if you’re not worried about the public image of cops, people in Democrat cities being abused by police).

  30. I want to see a movie where the aliens attack rural PA, or MI, or TX… on opening day of deer season.

  31. “Sorry for your loss, ma’am. I know this would have been easier on all of us if your child had been raped and strangled to death, or been run over by a truck. Fuckin guns, amiright?”

  32. Whatever media platform is used will have to agree to show it.

    They will not want to especially if it’s an effective pro-self defense/pro-gun message.

  33. Real answer? Stop appealing only to the jingoistic Right wing.

    If I were to do an ad for the NRA, it would bulletpoint 3 of the biggest lies/distortions the antis perpetuate (19 year olds counted as children, 2/3 of the deaths are suicides, the list goes on), then bulletpoint 3 of the most recent DGUs by gay folks, minorities, whathaveyou.

    Then–and this is important– stop glossing over gun control’s racist and classist roots and branches.

    Gun control started as and continues to be a way for people in power to keep their “lessers” from defending themselves.

    Don’t pretend that Reagan wasn’t behind what happened in 1968 and it was because he was scared of the Black Panthers, embrace it!

    Point out that the same people who are insisting that only the cops have guns are out the next day screaming that the cops are murderers and racists.

    There’s more, of course, but that’s a start.

  35. Interview rape or domestic abuse survivors who have armed up since their trauma, and cut in dramatizations of their story while they tell it. Then at the end have them ask the audience why they should be denied a firearm, or why some people are so hellbent on keeping them from defending themselves against a future attack.

  36. Creepy rapist is parking garage, woman uses heater to repel attacker. Dana Loesch voice: “A woman should always have the right to choose to defend her body.”

    Borrow the left’s sacred talking points.

  37. How about a woman walking down a street while three pieces of shit go after her and corner her in a dead end alley. Right when a knife comes out she draws a .357 and they run away. Or she drops them right there.
    Flash statistics on how many rapes or murder per hour happen, especially in gun free cities. Ask the viewer “how about where you live”?

  38. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LORVfnFtcH0

    Ever since this commercial came out I wanted a historically accurate one to oppose it. You could do some serious damage with late 18th century gear if left unopposed. The key is unopposed and that is always key. Heck even in this video they did not want to show that a musket can kill.

    Active Defense > Passive Defense

  39. Do those dont text and drive or those madd commercials where they interview the survivors of violence. Except instead of it being about drunk driving or texting have them say “i really wish he/she would have had a gun.” Slow violin music. Fade to black

  40. 76 TTAG comments appear on the wall, 76 comments appear, if 658 of those comments should happen to fall, 24 TTAG comments are left on the wall.

  41. Run a series of strung together shorts..
    A series of tableu of a person sweeping up their shirt and a or some Toughs backing away at the sight of the gun.
    A woman with a pistol in a bedroom with children, firing on a man breaking through a door.
    A teen boy in a house firing a shotgun at three masked thugs waving blades and blunts as they smash through a sliding glass door.
    Etc. Nothing long but a whole series of things that happened in real life most with never a shot fired, showing among them those who did.

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