Watch the Pro-Gun, Daniel Defense Ad the NFL Won’t Run During the Super Bowl

According to Guns & Ammo magazine, the ad
above, for gun-seller Daniel Defense, was submitted to the NFL for
consideration to run during the Super Bowl. It was shot down:

The NFL’s Advertising Policy addresses several Prohibited
Advertising Categories, including guidelines for ads featuring
alcohol, video games, movies, prescription drugs, and, of course,
firearms.

The firearms portion of the NFL’s Prohibited Advertising
Categories states:

“5. Firearms, ammunition or other weapons are prohibited;
however, stores that sell firearms and ammunitions (e.g., outdoor
stores and camping stores) will be permitted, provided they sell
other products and the ads do not mention firearms, ammunition or
other weapons.”

According to these guidelines, Daniel Defense’s Super Bowl
commercial does not violate NFL policy for two reasons:

• Daniel Defense has a brick-and-mortar store, where they sell
  products other than firearms such as apparel.
• The commercial itself does not mention firearms, ammunition or
  weaponry.

While Daniel Defense’s commercial does not mention firearms, it
does include a logo of their DDM4 rifle at the very end.

When the NFL denied the ad, Daniel Defense immediately offered
to replace the DDM4 logo with an American flag and/or the words
“Shall not be infringed.”

The NFL replied with another non-negotiable denial.

Read the whole story.

And so an industry
that is built on guys slamming into each other and inflicting
damage – and that runs ads for all sorts of violent action movies,
video games, and whatnot – pulls the plug on a gun ad that doesn’t
mention guns.

I support the NFL being allowed to choose to run whatever they
want (or not) during their games, assuming that such
decision-making is part of its contracts with the network airing
the game. I also support the right of Daniel Defense to create an
ad that they almost certainly knew would be banned, thus generating
an enormous amount of publicity (the point of advertising) while
also saving huge amounts of money (last year,
30 seconds reportedly cost $4 million). And I certainly support
the move toward liberalized gun-ownership laws, which is both
constitutional and has correlated
with declines in gun-violence rates.

Hat tip: Brad Thor’s Twitter feed,
Hot Air.