New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s gun control coalition aired a 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl.
The nonprofit Mayors Against Illegal Guns targeted the National Rifle Association’s stance on background checks in an ad that aired in Washington, D.C. during the third quarter of the game.
In the ad, “America, the Beautiful” plays in the background as photographs of five children flash across the screen. A young boy narrates.
“The NRA once supported background checks,” the boy says, before playing a 1999 clip of NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre urging mandatory criminal background checks for gun sales.
After LaPierre’s 14-year old speech, the boy narrator finishes by saying, “America can do this. For us. Please.”
A spokesman for Bloomberg told the Associated Press that the ad cost six figures. The New Yorker reports that Bloomberg used his personal finances to front the ad.
Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, told the Center for Public Integrity that the ad played only in Washington because “that’s where the people who make decisions are.”
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