They’ll also reject ads that show any firearm, semiautomatic or not, pointed at a human being. So if you’ve got a product that you want to showcase by depicting, say, a revolver held to a dog’s head or a bazooka aimed at the camera, you should be okay.

I thought yesterday’s news about New York’s new gun law would be hard to top as an example of the Do Something impulse gone moronically wrong. Nope. Took only one day.

Just weeks after the mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Time Warner Cable has initiated a company-wide ban on certain gun ads.

“We no longer accept ads showing semi-automatic weapons and guns pointed at people,” Time Warner Cable said in a statement. “We stand by this policy. If it’s essential to a business owner to show this kind of imagery in their commercials, there are other advertising options in the marketplace.”

I know what you’re thinking but Andy Levy got there first:

https://twitter.com/andylevy/status/292389889054474240

Also a good point:

@andylevy @brianstelter I was trying to think what ads have guns pointed at people, and all could think of were tv show promos.

— Frank J. Fleming (@IMAO_) January 18, 2013

I think I’ve seen NYPD PSAs in the subway that show guns, but that’s it offhand for ads featuring firearms that aren’t directly related to promoting the very industry on which TWC makes bank. So why’d Time Warner do this? Literally everyone who stumbles across the story will react the way Andy did. Unless they’re also prepared to ban programming that features guns, all they’re doing with this is calling attention to the fact that Hollywood, for all its liberal posturing, is hypocritically filthy with gun glorification. To take it seriously, you have to somehow believe that a print ad or a 30-second spot in which a semiautomatic appears — regardless of context — somehow does more to encourage gun violence than the hundreds of action movies that the average American has seen. In fact, I bet you’d have to look hard to find even an ad for a gun show or a gun brand that’s more pornographic in trumpeting the weapon’s killing power than a typical R-rated movie is. The public isn’t fooled.

By the way, if you’re a Time Warner customer and you subscribe to HBO, “The Sopranos” is on tonight at 8 p.m. ET on HBO Signature. You’re welcome.