“I don’t think it was particularly helpful, that ad,” Baker told Reuters in a telephone interview. “I thought it ill-advised.”

“I think the ad could have made a good point, if it talked about the need for increased school security, without making the point using the president’s children,” he said. The NRA has advocated putting armed guards in schools

Baker was the NRA’s representative at a meeting with Vice President Joseph Biden on January 10 to discuss the administration’s plans to reduce gun violence in the wake of the school shooting.

He said he was not involved in creating the ad, and once it appeared, he had let others at the NRA know what he thought. “I got to say my piece,” he said.