Jim Lamon, a Republican running for a U.S. Senate seat from Arizona, is facing harsh criticism over a new ad set to air during the Super Bowl that shows him firing a gun at likenesses of President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senator Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat.
The ad is set up as a classic Western film in which Lamon plays a sheriff and Biden, Pelosi, and Kelly are depicted as masked bandits. What makes the ad so controversial, however, is the ad's depiction of shooting Kelly, who is the husband of Gabby Giffords, the retired House member and gun control advocate, who was shot during a 2011 assassination attempt.
Writing on Twitter, Lamon claimed that Arizona "has had enough" of "open borders, high gas prices, and shifty politicians pushing us around," a reference to the Biden administration and Democratic leadership.
You can watch the ad in the video below.
Many have criticized the ad as insensitive and tactless and have called on Arizona voters not to support Lamon.
Lamon's ad has been criticized by the former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party, Brian Murray, who called it "pathetic."
This is also the second controversial ad Lamon has released in as many months. Last month, he released an ad invoking the anti-Biden phrase, "Let's go, Brandon!" The ad prompted Yahoo News to announce that it would not approve the ad to run on its platform unless the phrase was removed.
