Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) has released a 30-second ad urging Massachusetts voters to keep the state's sweeping 2024 gun law. In it, he takes the parts of a replica rifle out of two cardboard boxes and assembles it on camera.

To recap: the anti-gun ad is a gun tutorial.

"As a dad of three, I order lots of stuff online: Clothes, school supplies, you name it," Auchincloss says in the spot, according to the Boston Globe. "But you can also order the parts to build an untraceable gun."

Then he builds one. On camera. In under 30 seconds. With the lighting done.

According to a filing with state campaign finance regulators cited by the Globe, Auchincloss reported spending nearly $91,000 on ad production. That is $91,000 to film a man opening two boxes, the most expensive unboxing video in American history. Somewhere a 14-year-old YouTuber with a ring light and a cat just made the same video for free and got more views.

The campaign says a five-figure buy will run the ad on social media through Election Day. Auchincloss had nearly $7.5 million in his campaign account as of Sept. 30, so the congressman can afford it. Whether the message can afford him is a separate question.

The ballot measure, Question 9, is a referendum on Chapter 135, the 2024 law that requires serial numbers on all guns, including unfinished frames and receivers and 3D-printed weapons, and raises the age to own a semiautomatic rifle or shotgun to 21. A "Yes" keeps the law. A "No" repeals it. A Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll found just over 57% of voters plan to vote yes.

So the ad is spending $91,000 to persuade people who already agree with it. In Massachusetts, that's called Tuesday.

Gun-rights activists weren't impressed. Brandon Herrera, the Republican congressional nominee in Texas known online as "the AK Guy," posted: "Imagine paying a political consulting firm to record and produce an ad, but nobody bothers to fact check anything you say."

A Community Note was then added to the congressman's post, saying federal law already bars shipping a firearm, including a stripped lower receiver, to someone's house. The Daily Caller notes that most hobbyists buy partially finished receivers and still need tools, jigs and up to three days of work to finish one.

So the official message is: it's terrifyingly easy to build a gun at home, watch me do it in half a minute. The fine print is: it actually takes three days, special tools and a federal law that already exists.

Auchincloss's closing line is "As a Marine, I know that firearms demand training, accountability, and responsibility." True. So does a $91,000 production budget.

Here's what the spot accidentally proves. The hard part isn't building a rifle. The hard part is building a gun-control argument that survives contact with a guy who owns one.

Massachusetts already had some of the strictest gun laws in the country before 2024. Now its congressman has demonstrated, on video, that the Commonwealth's most dangerous assembly line is a Democratic campaign office with a production budget and no fact-checker.

Next week: the congressman releases a follow-up ad on the dangers of online shopping, filmed entirely inside his Amazon cart.

The Demorat is a satire and parody publication. This article is comedic commentary based on real news reports; jokes, exaggerations and fictional elements are intended as satire and should not be taken as factual reporting.

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