After Highland Park shooting, GOP Senator’s ‘Mass Murder’ Ad taken down.
A badly timed ad from the campaign of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) was taken off the air “ASAP” this week.
After the massacre in Highland Park, Illinois, on Monday, a Republican senator reportedly demanded that an uncomfortably incorrect radio ad about the “latest mass murder” be taken off the air.
According to emails published by The Intercept, Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wis.) reelection campaign requested that the anti-gun violence advertisement be pulled following the Fourth of July parade shooting that left at least seven people dead and numerous others injured.
“The latest mass murder in America didn’t involve guns,” the ad begins, then it talks about the 53 people who were found dead or dying in a sweltering tractor-trailer left on the outskirts of San Antonio on June 27 in an apparent migrant smuggling operation.
You can listen to the radio ad below.
One day after the shooting in Highland Park, a vice president of sales at Katz Radio Group, who was involved in creating the advertisement for Johnson’s campaign, reportedly asked that it be “removed ASAP.”
“If you listened to the advertisement, it talks about mass shootings, which obviously is not good creative after this past weekend (particularly in Chicago),” the Katz Radio executive added.
According to the non-profit Vote Smart, Johnson has opposed gun restrictions and has received an approval rating of 83 percent or higher from organizations like the National Rifle Association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, and Gun Owners of America in the past.
Johnson has received about $1.2 million in both direct and indirect contributions from pro-gun groups since his first campaign in 2010. Johnson has said he would vote against the bipartisan gun control legislation that has garnered support from several of his Republican Senate colleagues.
Johnson is locked in what polls suggest will be a tight election in Wisconsin. Despite a previous pledge not to seek a third term, Johnson announced that he would seek reelection in January.