I am reliably informed that the folks over at Michael Bloomberg’s gun-control outfit, Everytown, believe earnestly that the above commercial makes the case for stricter gun control. The intended message, presumably, is: “We need to keep guns out of the hands of violent men with restraining orders.” A laudable aim, in and of itself.
Does this come across? Not really, no. What the video ends up doing instead is demonstrating a) that people who are willing to abduct children and shoot women in the face are not likely to follow the laws (the victim already has a restraining order out against her assailant, which frankly doesn’t seem to be doing much); b) that the victim would have been better off with a gun in her hand than with a phone connected to the police department; and c) that, firearms being a great equalizer between men and women, any rules that make it difficult for potential victims to get hold of guns (and make no mistake: Everytown supports them all) put vulnerable people in danger.
Mistake.