Evolve is a gun safety advocacy organization that won attention last year for a McCann-made PSA starring a couple of moms whose kids confuse certain…tools for toy weapons.
Its latest campaign was created by Erwin Penland, whose CCO Con Williamson worked on an earlier Evolve PSA asking gun owners not to be dumbasses while at Saatchi & Saatchi New York.
In the “American Man” spot, Lucas–star of a bunch of movies we’ve never seen–addresses “our country’s dumbest problem,” which has nothing to do with Donald Trump. It’s more about the fact that some people just don’t store their firearms properly–a fact that may or may not turn an otherwise peaceful walk down Main Street into an unintentional target practice session.
Because this is a campaign ostensibly aimed at the general public, Lucas goes to great lengths to remind viewers that he loves America, despite what you may have heard about those actorly types:
In the release, the Evolve organization restates its support for a National Gun Safety Day and encourages viewers to sign a petition in order to “create a groundswell of activity around the issue” and compel (responsible) gun owners to make sure their weapons are stored safely via a three-step maxim: “Clear it. Check it. Lock it.”
The accidents that serve as fodder for this campaign are definitely real: just last week an incident at a wedding in New York’s Waldorf hotel left five injured and allowed The New York Post to take great pleasure in shaming a horrified bride.
At the same time, we don’t know that Evolve’s attempts to speak to “both sides” of the larger gun control debate will work. For example, the firearm news site Ammoland headlined the campaign today with this line:
“Josh Lucas & Evolve Assume You’re a Trigger Happy Dumbass in New Gun Safety Video”
Lots of work left to do, then.