There’s an ad from the National Rifle Association making the rounds on the internet that has some progressive groups clamoring for an apology over its divisive rhetoric.

The ad stars NRA spokesperson and right wing media personality Dana Loesch, who uses apocalyptic language to talk about an unnamed group of people (“they”) who “use their media to assassinate real news” and “their schools to teach children that their president is another Hitler.”

Loesch says that all of this is to get people to “smash windows, burn cars, shut down interstates and airports, bully and terrorize the law-abiding—until the only option left is for the police to do their jobs and stop the madness … The only way we stop this, the only way we save our country and our freedom, is to fight this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth.”

While the ad originally came out in April, it’s resurfaced in the past few days, thanks to tweets from activists like DeRay McKesson, who called it “an open call to violence to protect white supremacy.”

Tamika D. Mallory, a co-organizer of the Women’s March, released an open letter to NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, calling the ad “a direct endorsement of violence” against citizens “exercising their constitutional right to protest.”

“At a time when our nation is seeing a rise in racially charged incidents and violence motivated by hate speech, it is unconscionable for a powerful organization like yours to
unashamedly peddle an ‘us versus them’ narrative,” she writes. “You are calling for our grassroots, nonviolent resistance movement to be met with violence.”

Mallory calls for the ads to be taken down with an apology “to the American people.” She also wants the NRA to make a statement about Philando Castile, a black Minnesota motorist fatally shot by a police officer at a traffic stop after identifying himself as a legal and registered gun owner. In mid-June, officer Jeronimo Yanez was found not guilty of manslaughter and other charges related to the incident. The NRA has been notably silent about the case.

“Make a statement to defend Philando Castile’s right as a gun owner and demand the Department of Justice indict the police officer who killed him for violating his Second Amendment rights,” Mallory writes. “This call is clearly in line with the mission and purpose of the NRA as an organization that purports to be the lobby and defender of the right to bear arms.”

While progressives have been most outspoken about the ad, some conservative gun owners have also voiced concerns. One Midwestern Republican (anonymously) told HuffPost that the ad was “Orwellian nonsense designed to make you cheer and fist pump for your ‘freedom’ like dogs drooling when the bell gets rung,” though he didn’t think it would backfire against the advocacy group. “Much of their core membership seems impervious to logic and reason, sadly.”

Loesch responded to the criticism on Wednesday evening with a nine-minute video saying she has no idea why “people are freaking out.”

“The ad isn’t wrong,” she says. “It’s commentary.”

NRA Open Letter by Rachel Kurzius on Scribd