NRA lobbying arm launches seven-figure pro-Kavanaugh ad buy

The National Rifle Association’s legislative-lobbying arm announced Tuesday a seven-figure national and region ad campaign to support the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The national cable and regional broadcast ads will start airing Tuesday and will run through Aug. 27. The regional ads are to air in Alabama, Alaska, Indiana, North Dakota and West Virginia.

“The NRA strongly supports Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court because he will protect our constitutional right to keep and bear arms,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA). “It’s critical that all pro-Second Amendment voters urge their senators to confirm Judge Kavanaugh.”

A narrator in the 30-second ad says that “four liberals on the Supreme Court would take away your right to self-defense,” before cutting to Justice Stephen Breyer saying the Second Amendment doesn’t mean “the right of an individual to keep a gun next to his bed.”

The narrator later says that four justices “support your right to self-defense” and that “President Trump chose Brett Kavanaugh to break the tie.”

“Your right to self-defense depends on this vote,” the ad says.

Judge Kavanaugh is Mr. Trump’s pick to fill the vacancy on the high court left by the recent retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Gun-rights activists have cheered Judge Kavanaugh, who sits on the federal circuit court in D.C., for a 2011 dissent he wrote in a major gun case in which he argued that a District of Columbia ban on semi-automatic rifles went too far and that such weapons were in “common use” by Americans.

Gun control advocates have vowed to oppose his confirmation.

John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said it’s no surprise the NRA is going “all-in” for Judge Kavanaugh and that his judicial record demonstrates “a dangerous view of the Second Amendment that elevates gun rights above public safety.”