Giffords’ political ad going after Scott

Citing mass shootings in Parkland, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, the anti-gun violence group founded by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords launched an ad campaign Tuesday against Gov. Rick Scott “for repeatedly siding with the gun lobby over public safety.”

The ad started running Tuesday, six days after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in which 17 people were killed and 16 were injured.

The 30-second spot begins with references to the Stoneman Douglas shooting, as well as two other mass shootings in Florida: the Jan. 6, 2017 shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport that left five people dead and the June 12, 2016, shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in which a gunman killed 49 people.

The spot shows video snippets of candlelight vigils at which people are mourning shooting victims. It also the type of sinisterlooking black-and-white images of the subject — in this case Scott — typically seen in political attack ads.

The ad criticizes the governor for signing a law — ultimately struck down by a federal appeals court — aimed at preventing doctors asking their patients questions about guns.

The Giffords group said in a statement that a “critical component of addressing our nation’s gun violence epidemic is supporting the candidates who will stand up to the gun lobby and fight for safer gun laws.” Hours after the Stoneman Douglas shooting, the organization launched a national #VoteCourage effort to encourage people to support candidates in November who will “stand up to the gun lobby and fight for safer communities.”

In Florida, that makes Scott a high-profile subject for the group. “The tragic shooting in Parkland, Florida, has sparked grassroots outrage across the state and country. People are angry that time after time, politicians have chosen gun lobby contributions over public safety,” Peter Ambler, the Giffords organization’s executive director, said in a statement.

“Nowhere is this problem thrown into sharper relief than in Florida, where Governor Rick Scott has complied with the gun lobby’s every wish, speaking at the NRA convention and even signing legislation that prevented doctors and mental health professionals from addressing threats relating to firearms with their patients.”

Scott’s political organization didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday evening.

After the Stoneman Douglas massacre, Scott promised to examine a range of options to improve school safety in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting. In the past, the governor hasn’t supported any of the kinds of efforts supported by the Giffords organization to restrict access to firearms.

Scott can’t run again because of term limits; he’s widely expected to announce shortly a campaign to challenge U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

A spokesman for the Giffords organization said Wednesday by email the ad campaign would be a “strong six-figure buy,” but he didn’t offer a dollar amount. He said it would run on broadcast and cable news in some of the state’s most expensive media markets: Miami-Fort Lauderdale and Tampa Bay as well as in the West Palm Beach and Orlando TV markets.

Giffords was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona.

At the beginning of her third term, she was severely injured in a Jan. 8, 2011, assassination attempt in which six people were killed and 13 injured. After Giffords resigned from Congress, she and her husband, retired NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, formed a gun-violence prevention organization.