Does the Firearms, Baseball and Apple Pie Billboard Over I-55 Offend You?

Gun control activists, including the Rev. Michael Pfleger, want a billboard hovering over the Stevenson Expressway taken down, saying it exposes children to a harmful message — that firearms are as American as baseball and apple pie.

The sign is visible to eastbound traffic on I-55 near Central Avenue. The billboard has been in place since Jan. 13.

Hal Kilshaw, vice president of governmental relations for LaMar Advertising, told the Chicago Tribune in February that the billboard company decided to accept copy from the advertiser, Slide Fire.

Slide Fire is a Texas-based company.

"We feel like it's a legal product, and the advertiser has a First Amendment right to try to sell this product," Kilshaw said. "If a group wanted to run a billboard that says, 'We think semiautomatic rifles should be banned,' we would run that."

Pfleger, who has served as pastor to South Side Catholic churches in neighborhoods beset by gun violence, told ABC 7 News this week that the billboard must come down.