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The National Rifle Association, which never misses a chance to explain why gun ownership is a grand and essential American tradition in the wake of a mass shooting, is debuting an anti-gun-control Snapchat geofilter for tonight’s Republican presidential debate in Nevada. Geofilters are special overlays for Snaps that can only be accessed in designated locations.
The filter, shown on the left, is meant to draw attention to a November 2016 Nevada ballot initiative that would require someone without a gun sales license to run a background check on a buyer through a licensed seller. The filter specifically calls out former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one of the country’s best-known gun control advocates, who is backing the Nevada ballot measure.
A Snapchat spokesperson confirmed to Re/code that the geofilter is an ad paid for by the NRA that’s acceptable under the service’s political ad guidelines.
The NRA is hardly the first group to use Snapchat for flashy political campaign advertising. Tonight, pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC Priorities USA is running one that’s critical of Donald Trump. Earlier this year, the right-wing organization Judicial Watch paid for a similar filter during the Benghazi hearings back in October, and a couple months before that, the conservative group Secure America Now did something similar about the nuclear deal negotiated with Iran.
Here’s a blog post from the NRA’s website with more information about the filter, Nevada and tonight’s debate.
https://twitter.com/NRA/status/676817544825708545/photo/1
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
