Dana Loesch

About

Dana Loesch is American conservative political activist, commentator and spokesperson for the National Rifle Associate. In the 2010s, she found herself embroiled in various controversies regarding gun rights and her affiliation with the NRA, particularly in regards to the television commercials for the organization and the NRA's response to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shootings.

Online History

Dana Loesch came to public prominence in the late-2000s, after a writing stint at St. Louis Magazine and her own website "Mamalouges." In 2008,she started her own nationally-syndicated, daily radio talkshow, The Dana Show: The Conservaitve Alternative. The show's popularity led to her being named one of the Top 50 Most Powerful Mom Bloggers and a position as eiditor-in-chief at the Andrew Brietbart-founded website Big Journalism.^[1]

In 2011, CNN^[2] hired Loesch for election coverage for the 2012 presidential election.

The following year, Loesch made comments about a video of a group of marines urinating on a dead Taliban soldier. She said, “I’d drop trou and do it too. That’s me, though. I want a million cool points for these guys." In response to the backlash towards the comments, CNN said in a statement, "CNN contributors are commentators who express a wide range of viewpoints--on and off of CNN--that often provoke strong agreement or disagreement. Their viewpoints are their own."^[3]

In January 2014, Loesch was given a daily TV show on TheBlaze called Dana. The show ended in 2017 when Loesch left the network.^[4]

Criticism

NRA Videos

In 2017, Loesch was named Special Assistant to the Executive Vice, a major national spokesperson for the NRA.^[5]

On April 7th, the NRA uploaded the first of Loesch's commercials for the group, "Freedom's Safest Place," to YouTube ^[6] The video (shown below, left) received more than 715,000 views. Two months later, on June 15th, the NRA uploaded the video to Facebook, ^[7] where it received more than 24,000 reactions, 8,100 comments, 64,000 shares and 8.2 millions views.

On October 20th, Loesch appeared in a second advertisment, "Freedom's Safest Place." The video (shown below, right) received more than 74,000 views in less than four months.

The reaction to the videos was negative among those critical of the NRA and those who were in support of gun rights. Many believed that the advertisements were inciting violence. The Washington Post^[10] reported that Facebook user and lifelong member wrote, "I’m an old white guy and a life member, but this BS is disgusting. When you spew crap like this, you don’t speak for me anymore. I try to avoid doing things on the spur of the moment, but I’ll be thinking about canceling my membership."

On June 28th, 2017, Twitter ^[9] user @JeffSharlet tweeted, "This new NRA ad is barely a whisper shy of a call for full civil war." The post (shown below, left) received more than 5,800 retweets and 7,500 likes in less than one year. Black Live Matter activist Deray Mckesson tweeted,^[11] "This NRA ad is an open call to violence to protect white supremacy. If I made a video like this, I'd be in jail." The post (shown below, center) received more than 28,000 retweets and 43,000 likes in less than one year. Television host Montel Williams tweeted,^[12] "This ad doesn’t speak for me as a proud, responsible gun owner. I find it disgusting. @Everytown @sandyhook." The post (shown below, right) received more than 75 retweets and 210 likes in less than one year.

Shortly after the video went up, a petition was started on Care2^[13] to have the ad removed from Facebook.

Loesch^[14] said of the controversy, "I hardly think that condemning violence is inciting violence. I think the ad is very clear -- there are excerpts from actual riots that are included in the ad and that’s exactly what I’m addressing. I really question the reason and motive of individuals who would want to conflate peaceful protest -- which I have witnessed and participated in myself -- with violent riots."

CNN Town Hall

On February 22nd, CNN held a town hall event in Sunrise, Florida, in which survivors of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting could ask questions of local, state and federal representatives as well as NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch about gun control. During the event, Stoneman Douglas student Emma Gonzalez asked Loesch about the NRA's position on gun control laws (shown below).^[15]

That day, Twitter user CNN Digital news reporter tweeted^[16] a video of people booing Loesch as she left the town hall. The post (shown below) received more than 360 retweets and 1,300 likes in less than one week.

Search Interest

External Refernces