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Original Paper
Characteristics of Gun Advertisements on Social Media:
Systematic Search and Content Analysis of Twitter and YouTube
Posts
Lisa Jordan*, PhD; James Kalin*; Colleen Dabrowski*, BA
Drew University, Madison, NJ, United States
*all authors contributed equally
Corresponding Author:
Lisa Jordan, PhD
Drew University
36 Madison Ave
Madison, NJ, 07940 1434
United States
Phone: 1 9734083740
Email: ljordan@drew.edu
Abstract
Background: Although gun violence has been identified as a major public health concern, the scope and significance of internet
gun advertising is not known.
Objective: This study aimed to quantify the characteristics of gun advertising on social media and to compare the reach of posts
by manufacturers with those of influencers.
Methods: Using a systematic search, we created a database of recent and popular Twitter and YouTube posts made public by
major firearm manufacturers and influencers. From our sample of social media posts, we reviewed the content of the posts on
the basis of 19 different characteristics, such as type of gun, presence of women, and military or police references. Our content
analysis summarized statistical differences in the information conveyed in posts to compare advertising approaches across social
media platforms.
Results: Sample posts revealed that firearm manufacturers use social media to attract audiences to websites that sell firearms:
14.1% (131/928; ±2.9) of Twitter posts, 53.6% (228/425; ±6.2) of YouTube videos, and 89.5% (214/239; ±5.1) of YouTube
influencer videos link to websites that facilitate sales. Advertisements included women in efforts to market handguns and pistols
for the purpose of protection: videos with women included protection themes 2.5 times more often than videos without women.
Top manufacturers of domestic firearms received 98 million channel views, compared with 6.1 billion channel views received
by the top 12 YouTube influencers.
Conclusions: Firearm companies use social media as an advertising platform to connect viewers to websites that sell guns. Gun
manufacturers appropriate YouTube servers, video streaming services, and the work of YouTube influencers to reach large
audiences to promote the widespread sale of consumer firearms. YouTube and Twitter subsidize gun advertising by offering
server and streaming services at no cost to gun manufacturers, to the commercial benefit of Google and Twitter’s corporate
ownership.
(J Med Internet Res 2020;22(3):e15736) doi: 10.2196/15736
KEYWORDS
firearms; advertising; social media; internet; gender identity
Introduction
Background
Gun production and imports of guns in the United States have
risen significantly over the past 30 years. According to the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, there
has been a three-fold increase in the total number of guns made
in the United States from 3 million in 1986 to over 11 million
in 2016. Imports grew from 0.7 million in 1986 to 4.49 million
in 2017 [1]. As the international regulation of firearms in most
industrialized countries tends to be more restrictive than the
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United States, some foreign manufacturers, such as those in
Japan, export over 90% of their annual production to the United
States [2,3]. Proliferation of firearms presents significant
challenges to domestic and global public health: weapons from
US markets have been linked to elevated crime, violence, and
homicide in other countries [3-8]. Public health responses to
firearms require a closer examination of the company practices
that facilitate the widespread distribution and increased lethality
of small arms in the United States.
US gun control research has much to learn from successful
public health programs that sought to reduce widespread injuries
from motor vehicle accidents and harm from tobacco use. For
example, in outlining his recommendations for a public health
approach to guns, Hemenway [3] borrowed the Haddon matrix
[9] from injury prevention studies to illustrate opportunities for
health interventions before, during, and after injury events
involving firearms. Hemenway also recommended that public
health scholarship examine the approaches that firearm
manufacturers use to promote gun sales, drawing comparisons
to very successful health interventions in tobacco advertising
and sales [3]. Interventions aimed at restricting the distribution
of firearms, limiting gun advertising, and challenging the
normalization of gun use are examples of prevention programs
that reduce firearm-related injuries.
Although several past studies describe the characteristics of
firearm advertising in print magazines and catalogs [2,10,11],
the landscape for advertising, sales, and communications has
changed radically with the advent of Web-based marketing.
New public health scholarship in this area is needed [12,13].
However, despite diversification in the media to include
Web-based videos, websites, blogs, podcasts, and social media,
many of the advertising messages developed over the past few
decades are similar to current approaches, making previous
research still relevant for informing contemporary studies of
social media and Web-based gun sales.
Building on work to characterize print advertising [2,10,14],
this paper examined major themes in firearm advertising used
in social media. First, we developed a system for sampling and
comparing Twitter use by firearm manufacturers to distribute
advertising, then we expanded our work to classify YouTube
posts made by gun manufacturers and gun influencers to study
firearm advertising. We have begun with a descriptive review
of US civilian firearm ownership, the health consequences of
firearm advertising, and the role of social media in advertising.
Our methods for studying the advertising characteristics used
by firearm manufacturers have been described, and the
descriptive results of our analysis have been provided. Finally,
we concluded with a list of possible interventions to curtail
small arms proliferation in US civilian markets and a list of
recommendations for future work.
Characteristics of Civilian Gun Ownership in the
United States
Recent estimates of US civilian firearms place the total number
of private guns at 393 million: higher than the US population
[15]. Despite the high overall volume of weapons, the General
Social Survey and Pew Research Surveys found a trend toward
declining US gun ownership, from over half of adults in 1980
to less than one-third of adults in 2015 [16]. Concurrent with
the decline in ownership is a rise in the number of guns per
owner: the National Firearms Survey estimated that half the US
civilian gun stock was owned by 14% of the gun owners,
comprising roughly 3% of the US population [17].
Trends in US gun ownership are stratified by time, place, and
demography. At no time in US history has ownership of this
lethal weapon been equal. The General Social Survey results
reveal significant regional and temporal variations in ownership
over the past 50 years. The highest ownership rates were found
in 1976, where over 80% of households located in East South
Central states (Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee)
reported owning a gun; conversely, in 2018, sample data for
Middle Atlantic states (New York, New Jersey, and
Pennsylvania) estimate ownership rates at 19% [18].
Contemporary studies found that 67% of gun owners respond
that protection is a major reason for owning a gun [19].
The Pew Research Center found substantive demographic
differences in US gun ownership: 39% of men and 22% of
women recently surveyed own a gun [20]. White gun ownership
is 50% greater than black gun ownership (36% compared with
24%), whereas Hispanic gun ownership is less than half the rate
of white gun ownership (Hispanic gun ownership is estimated
at 15%) [20]. One study found that public perception of gun
ownership significantly overestimates actual ownership, which
may contribute to more moderate views of gun control [21]. To
reiterate, the majority of people in the United States do not own
a gun, but male and white populations own guns at significantly
higher rates.
Health Outcomes and Gun Advertising
The health impact of firearms in the United States is widespread.
In total, 44% of US residents know someone who has been shot,
and a higher proportion, 51% of US gun owners surveyed, know
someone who was shot [22]. When combined across causes of
death, including firearm deaths from homicides, suicides, and
accidental shootings, the annual age-adjusted death rate declined
from a peak in 1993, but the total number of firearm-related
deaths in the United States has increased in recent years and in
2017 it reached 39,773, exceeding total deaths from motor
vehicle accidents [22,23]. According to the Centers for Disease
Control, from 1999 to 2017, 612,000 deaths by firearms
occurred in the United States [23].
Many scholars have observed the significance of firearms on
children’s health: gun-related injuries are the second leading
cause of death for children and adolescents in the United States
[24]. Over 70% of gun owners have small children, and
firearm-related deaths are more frequent when handgun
ownership is higher [25]. A study of school-associated
homicides in the United States found that although rates of
single-victim homicides remained unchanged over the past 20
years, multiple-victim incidence rates increased significantly
from 2009 to 2018 [26]. In total, 95% of multiple-victim
school-associated homicides in the United States were from
firearm-related injuries, compared with the rate of 62.8% for
single-victim homicides [26].
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The presence of firearms is a known hazard. Occupations that
require firearm use have been connected to elevated risk of
fatality by suicide. Data from the northeastern United States
found that 13% of suicide attempts resulted in fatality; however,
91% of suicide attempts by firearms were lethal [27]. Suicides
among US police officers, veterans, and members of the armed
forces have come under particular scrutiny. Recent studies have
shown that the rate of suicide among veterans and service
members is twice the rate of suicide in the civilian population
and that firearms were used in 70% of service member suicide
deaths [28]. New York Police Department suicides have been
declared a mental health emergency [29]. Evidence-based
interventions in the Israeli military that restricted officer access
to firearms over the weekend reduced suicide deaths by 40%
[30].
The risk of firearm injury found in occupational health extends
to the general population. Research in preventive medicine
found US gun ownership and youth suicide rates to be closely
correlated [31] and that state legal restrictions on firearms
reduced intimate partner homicide [32]. Permissive state gun
laws are also significantly associated with greater numbers of
mass shootings [33].
Perhaps in response to the high burden of deaths from firearms,
67% of Americans surveyed by the Associated Press in
partnership with the University of Chicago in 2017 and 2018
favor stricter gun laws [34]. Community-based interventions
that provide gun storage for families with suicidal individuals
may also save lives, suggesting that where fewer state laws
exist, law enforcement and gun dealers may step in to promote
safe storage [35]. A recent survey of gun owners identified law
enforcement and active military as the most effective groups to
educate about safe gun storage [36].
Some scholars equate advertising with disease promotion.
Freudenberg [37] argued:
Advertising seeks to create new customers and
encourage existing ones to purchase more. When the
product being advertised is lethal (as in the case of
tobacco or guns) or can easily be used in ways that
harm health (e.g. alcohol, SUVs, and some
pharmaceuticals), advertising falls squarely within
the rubric of disease promotion.
Both the expansion of US civilian gun markets and the
intensification of gun ownership to include more weapons are
troubling trends, given recent evidence that individuals in the
United States who self-report impulsive angry behavior and
gun ownership currently comprise an estimated 8.9% of the
population [38]. Reducing the appeal of assault weapons, and
limiting advertisements of guns to police, veterans, and armed
service members, by better understanding and intervening in
gun advertising could translate into fewer gun-related deaths.
Gun Advertising on Social Media
Decisions by major print, television, and Web-based media
sources to restrict paid firearm advertising is remarkable: gun
advertisements used to circulate among major US newspapers
and magazines commonly found in homes [11]. Notable
advocacy campaigns, such as Close the Loophole on Gun
Advertising, went from newspaper to newspaper to negotiate
policies that would limit gun solicitations in classified
advertisements [37]. Comcast followed NBC, Time Warner
Cable, Fox, and ESPN to ban firearm and ammunition
advertising in most channels in 2013 [39].
Despite encouraging statements by private media companies,
public health responses to predatory advertising have been
limited by the 2005 passage of the federal Protection of Lawful
Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which protects gun makers
from lawsuits related to weapons misuse [14,40]. Although
firearm advertisers have acknowledged constraints, such as
exclusions from Super Bowl advertising, they have welcomed
looser, more diversified Web-based options through both
mainstream and alternative internet and social media [41].
The shift to internet advertising has been rapid. Since 2005, the
number of US adults who used a social media site grew from
5% to 69% in 2018 [42]. The number is highest among adults
aged between 18 and 29 years: 88% [42]. In 2019, the most
commonly used social media platform by US adults was
YouTube (73%) followed by Facebook (69%) and Twitter (22%)
[43]. Among adults aged between 18 and 29 years, over 90%
said they have used YouTube, and 44% of adults aged 18 to 24
years said they have used Twitter [43]. According to YouTube,
1.9 billion users log on each month, from over 90 countries
[44].
Most US adult YouTube users agree that the site is very
important for “figuring out how to do things they haven’t done
before” [45]. However, users often identify problematic content.
Among US adults viewing YouTube, 61% say they frequently
or sometimes have observed videos with “people engaging in
dangerous or troubling behavior” [45]. Moreover, 81% of US
parents let their children watch videos on YouTube, and 61%
of those parents have felt that their child regularly or
occasionally “encountered content that they felt was unsuitable
for children” [45].
The relative efficacy of social media advertising leading to
firearm sales is unknown: most manufacturers are privately
owned companies, so documents on advertising expenditures
and company profitability are not public [2,3]. However, there
is an emerging, but rich, body of research on the use of social
media, particularly YouTube, for spreading tobacco and
e-cigarette advertising [46-51]. Given there are restrictions on
legal channels for advertising, tobacco companies have
increasingly turned to internet promotion [52]. Platforms such
as YouTube present challenges for consumer information,
because it is difficult to differentiate paid advertising from
purely creative content, and the authenticity of YouTube videos
creates relationships between the video personalities and the
viewers, which are particularly influential with young people
[53]. In the case of tobacco, exposure to Web-based marketing
was found to be a risk factor for use [54-56].
Celebrity endorsements have been found to positively influence
sales, and previous research identifies Twitter and other social
media platforms as important mechanisms to share endorsements
[57]. In addition to celebrities, an increasingly scrutinized source
of behavioral change is the role of the internet or social media
influencers. For example, recent studies connected tobacco use
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behaviors to influencers on Twitter [58], and research on eating
behaviors in youths found that YouTube influencers significantly
affected unhealthy food consumption [59]. Studies now connect
engagement strategies with increased advertising effectiveness
[55,60]. Research also found that tobacco engagement marketing
led to an increase in “the risk of initiation and progression and
decrease in likelihood of cessation” [55].
Pew Research Center surveys reveal some of the patterns in
media consumption among gun owners: 43% of male gun
owners (33% of female gun owners) watch television programs
or videos about guns, and 39% of male gun owners (28% of
female gun owners) visit websites about guns [20]. Researchers
also found that gun owners with more guns were more likely
to watch gun videos or visit gun websites: 53% of gun owners
with 5 or more firearms watch videos about guns, compared
with 32% of gun owners with only 1 gun [20]. In total, 51% of
gun owners with five or more guns visited gun websites,
compared with 22% who owned only 1 gun [20].
Protection is a dominant concern for gun owners and a common
marketing message used by manufacturers of guns. According
to Pew Research Center findings, two-thirds of gun owners say
that protection is the major reason that they own a gun [22].
Handgun advertising has been shown to exploit this rationale,
despite evidence that households with firearms are at elevated
risks of gun violence from homicide, suicide, and accidental
injury [61].
Social networks also appear to influence a variety of health
behaviors [62]. Screenagers, a documentary by Delaney Ruston,
a primary care physician, describes the wide range of negative
health and behavioral outcomes emerging from social media
use by the youth [63]. Adoption of social media to create discord
and harm poses a threat to public health: one study has explored
violence and crime-related Twitter use by gangs in Detroit,
Michigan [64]. Another recent article found troubling evidence
for the use of Russian bots to distribute misinformation about
vaccines on Twitter [65].
In some ways, internet and social media companies have been
responsive to gun violence and other issues. Social media
companies agreed to a variety of restrictions after the Parkland
school shooting [66]. YouTube expanded its previous ban on
videos demonstrating the use or construction of bump stock
modifications following the Las Vegas shooting in 2016 to
include more rigorous restrictions [67]. According to stated
policy, videos intending to sell firearms, providing instruction
on the construction of firearms, ammunition, or accessories, or
providing instruction on the installation of accessories are not
allowed and will result in the removal of the video [68].
However, the details of the policy description focus on
person-to-person sales and do-it-yourself fabrication as the
emphasis of content moderation. As of June 2019, Twitter’s
policy is as follows: “Twitter prohibits the promotion of
weapons and weapon accessories globally” [69]. Nevertheless,
many are concerned that protections for viewers, particularly
for children, are too relaxed and that implementation of company
policies has been less effective than socially desired [70].
Recent research on commercial content moderation challenges
the face value of social media policies, demonstrating the
intentionality behind vague user guidelines and the purposeful
cover-up of company instruments of control [71,72]. For
example, most commercial content moderation requires human
intervention that is not automated [71,72]. The employment and
working conditions, particularly with respect to occupational
health and mental health, are shocking, unethical, and hidden
behind restrictive nondisclosure agreements or by recruiting
work through contract labor, piecemeal labor, and offshore
arrangements [72].
This study aimed to characterize the contemporary use of social
media for the purposes of gun advertising by gun companies
and YouTube influencers. We quantified the frequency of
common themes found in gun advertisements, as first designated
by research pertaining to print advertisements [10]. This study
builds on past research of print advertisements by conducting
a systematic search of Twitter and YouTube use by major US
gun manufacturers, identifying links to internet gun sales made
in Twitter and YouTube posts, and conducting a systematic
search of gun promotion found in YouTube influencer posts.
Methods
To study the ways that firearm manufacturers use social media
for advertising, we performed a systematic search and content
analysis. We began by identifying top gun manufacturers. Next,
we located the publicly accessible Twitter profiles and YouTube
channels connected to the manufacturing companies. We
sampled the manufacturer posts by examining the most recent
and most popular posts. From our sample, we systematically
reviewed the text, images, and video information delivered on
each post for the presence of 19 advertising themes, originally
explored in a previous study by Saylor et al [10]. These variables
were coded into two databases: Twitter posts and YouTube
posts.
In addition to surveying information distributed by firearm
manufacturers on social media, we chose to explore the recent
and most popular posts made by YouTube influencers. On the
basis of marketing reports from the firearm advertising industry,
we searched for the most influential YouTube channels that
focus on sharing information about firearms. This sample of
social media posts was also reviewed for the presence of gun
advertising themes. After the observations of social media posts
were complete, we conducted a content analysis by calculating
summary statistics to describe the characteristics of posts made
by manufacturers on Twitter and YouTube and by influencers
on YouTube. We compared the recent posts with the most
popular posts, across platforms and owners.
The specific process for identifying social media advertisements
is outlined below. We began with a systematic search of top
domestic gun producers and identified top foreign imports to
the United States. We explored the relative and cumulative
impact of their production of guns, and their relative and
cumulative impact on social media advertising. We also
specified the database design and contents.
Producers of firearms and ammunition in the United States and
the quantities of guns made annually are listed in the Annual
Firearms Manufacturing and Export Report, published by the
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Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco, and Explosives (ATF;
see Table 1 for a summary) [73]. Information aggregated by the
ATF demonstrates that production of firearms is concentrated
in a few companies. The top domestic manufacturer, Sturm,
Ruger & Company, produced 1.6 million firearms in 2017,
which comprised 19.50% (1,631,554/8,366,943) of all new
domestic firearms. The top 4 companies manufacture the
majority of all firearms (4,521,925/8,366,942, 54.04%), and the
top manufacturers producing over 50,000 firearms in 2017,
included 23 companies, accounting for 87.78%
(7,345,049/8,366,942) of US production. Of the 2111 firearm
manufacturers identified by the ATF, over half (n=1120)
manufactured fewer than 10 firearms.
Table 1. Firearm manufacturing characteristics of top domestic producers (over 50,000 firearms produced in 2017).
Number of firearms manufactured (in-
cludes rifles, pistols, shotguns, re-
volvers, and miscellaneous), n (%)
Types of firearms producedFederal firearms licensed manufacturers
Pistols, n (%)Rifles, n (%)
1,631,554 (19.50)781,623 (47.91)661,155 (40.52)Sturm, Ruger & Company
1,506,256 (18.00)1,032,450 (68.54)265,356 (17.62)Smith & Wesson Corp
811,421 (9.70)59,581 (7.34)448,513 (55.28)Remington Arms
572,694 (6.84)536,774 (93.73)35,920 (6.27)Sig Sauer Inc
499,100 (5.97)0 (0.00)80,275 (16.08)Maverick Arms Inc
235,037 (2.81)0 (0.00)235,037 (100.00)Henry Rac Holding Corp
226,065 (2.70)0 (0.00)0 (0.00)Heritage Manufacturing
216,585 (2.59)183,858 (84.89)11,378 (5.25)Kimber Mfg Inc
215,125 (2.57)1448 (0.67)2295 (1.07)WM C Anderson Inc
175,696 (2.10)175,696 (100.00)0 (0.00)Glock Inc
160,417 (1.92)3326 (2.07)28,562 (17.80)Palmetto State Armory
150,729 (1.80)81,377 (53.99)69,352 (46.01)Springfield Inc
150,647 (1.80)150,647 (100.00)0 (0.00)SCCY Industries LLC
150,630 (1.80)58,982 (39.16)66,235 (43.97)Kel Tec CNC Industries
91,205 (1.09)2775 (3.04)88,430 (96.96)Radical Firearms LLC
86,526 (1.03)46,015 (53.18)40,511 (46.82)Strassells Machine Inc
79,525 (0.95)2 (0.00)1490 (1.87)Aero Precision LLC
77,214 (0.92)57,411 (74.35)2778 (3.60)Beretta USA Corp
77,124 (0.92)61,510 (79.75)15,614 (20.25)FN America LLC
69,226 (0.83)69,123 (100.00)103 (0.15)Taurus International
59,591 (0.71)31,987 (53.68)13,942 (23.40)Colt's Manufacturing
51,452 (0.61)50,331 (97.82)668 (1.30)Browning Arms
51,230 (0.61)24,270 (47.37)26,960 (52.63)Diamondback Firearms
7,345,049 (87.79)3,409,186 (46.41)2094,574 (28.52)Total among top manufacturers (listed)
For this paper, we chose to explore the top manufacturers that
produced over 50,000 firearms. Given that a significant portion
of firearms enter the United States as imports [2,74], and are
not included in the domestic manufacturing list, we identified
top manufacturers in other countries with sizable exports of
firearms to the United States: Croatia (HS Produkt), Turkey
(MKE, also known as Zenith Firearms), the Czech Republic
(CZ firearms), and the Philippines (Armscor). Within the list
of major producers, a few did not have Twitter handles (Sturm,
Ruger & Company; Colt’s Manufacturing Company; and HS
Produkt), and some did not have YouTube channels (Heritage
Manufacturing; HS Produkt; and Radical Firearms). The SCCY
Network YouTube channel was excluded because it only
included two videos.
By searching Twitter, we were able to identify Twitter handles
for 24 manufacturers, representing 68% of the domestic firearm
production (Table 2). From these, we archived the 44,571 most
recent tweets, ending May 15, 2019, representing 65% of all
tweets from these manufacturers, using Twitonomy, a social
media analytics service [75]. From the recent tweets obtained,
we explored the 20 most recent tweets, ending May 15, 2019,
and the 20 most retweeted tweets, for each company: generating
a sample size of 928 tweets. The choice to explore 20 was
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arbitrarily made by the authors to create a sufficiently large
sample to code within reasonable time constraints.
By searching YouTube, we found 24 channels hosted by the
major firearm manufacturers, which account for 85% of the
domestic firearm production (Table 3). Of the over 3600 videos
posted by these manufacturers, we chose to classify the 10 most
recent videos and the 10 most viewed videos. The number 10
was chosen arbitrarily by the authors. Our sample totaled to 425
videos, ranging in dates from May 2008 to May 2019. Overall,
these channels covered over 0.5 million subscribers and 98
million views. The videos we reviewed account for 11.6% of
all videos from these channels, but a sizable proportion of all
views, at just over 44 million views.
Table 2. Twitter archive summary for top domestic firearm manufacturers by followers.
Followers, nTotal number of tweets, nTwitter handleManufacturer
290,2404954@GLOCKIncGlock Inc
265,9062844@SmithWessonCorpSmith & Wesson Corp
240,3784924@RemingtonArmsRemington Arms Company LLC
189,94514,831@Beretta_USABeretta USA Corp
144,2831634@Springfield_IncSpringfield Inc
108,3882356@sigsauerincSig Sauer Inc
75,7387646@kimberamericaKimber Mfg Inc
68,4171695@FN_AmericaFn America, LLC
50,3283493@czusafirearmsCZ
43,939691@aero_precisionAero Precision LLC
40,1093480@MossbergCorpMaverick Arms, INC (subsidiary of Mossberg & Sons)
23,9411785@TarususUSATaurus International Manufacturing Inc
17,2271251@HenryRiflesHenry RAC Holding Corp
16,297766@BrowningArmsBrowning Arms Company
11,4346290@andersonriflesWM C Anderson Inc
11,1751244@SCCYgunsSccy Industries LLC
96451330@keltecweaponsKel Tec CNC Industries Inc
93183891@PalmettoArmoryPalmetto State Armory, LLC
51181048@DBFirearmsDiamondback Firearms LLC (owned by Taurus)
3134571@ArmscorRIAArmscor
1559489@HiPointFirearmsStrassells Machine Inc (also known as Hi-Point Firearms)
111297@RadicalFirearmsRadical Firearms LLC
560922@ZenithFirearmsMKE (also known as Zenith Firearms)
131473@heritagemfgincHeritage Manufacturing Inc
1,628,32268,705
N/Aa
Total
aNot applicable.
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Table 3. Summary of top firearm manufacturers on YouTube by total views.
Total number of views. nTotal number of videos, nSubscribers, nManufacturer
Private2PrivateSCCY Firearms, Sccy Industries LLC
Private349PrivateSpringfield Armory, Springfield Inc
17,553,84337265,407Beretta USA Corp, Browning Arms Company
15,133,05336474,282Sturm, Ruger and Co
13,191,06761718,532Browning
9,894,62325695,927Sig Sauer, Sig Sauer Inc
8,696,12923343,865Smith and Wesson, Smith & Wesson Corp
6,858,98224233,756Remington Arms, Remington Arms Company LLC
5,631,87511527,593Mossberg, Maverick Arms, Inc (subsidiary of Mossberg & Sons)
4,863,5707856,865Glock, Glock Inc
4,263,31710616,781CZUSA, CZ
3,159,0383412,628Taurus USA, Taurus International Manufacturing Inc
2,988,74136619,039ArmscorRIA, Armscor
2,289,3105433,783Henry Repeating Arms, Henry RAC Holding Corp
1,489,96818812,418Kimber Firearms, Kimber Mfg Inc
870,1495717,190Palmetto State Armory, Palmetto State Armory, LLC
440,015427031Colt Manufacturing Co
208,9473210,386FN, Fn America, LLC
175,656189617Aero Precision, Aero Precision LLC
146,328501528Zenith Firearms, MKE (also known as Zenith Firearms)
61,61841441Kel-Tec, Kel Tec CNC Industries Inc
54,25081,433Hi-Point, Strassells Machine Inc (also known as Hi-Point Firearms)
41,862202,025Anderson Manufacturing, WM C Anderson Inc
32,60313627Diamondback Firearms, Diamondback Firearms LLC (owned by
Taurus)
98,044,9443657561,154Total
Firearm advertisers and advertisements refer to the important
role of influencers in communicating information about new
firearms and ammunition and promoting gun ownership and
use for recreation and home protection. According to the Danger
Close Media (DCM) Group, a firearm advertising organization,
influencers are essential to firearm advertisers as social media
outlets increase restrictions [76]. From the DCM Group, a list
of top influencers was identified. We explored influencer
channels on YouTube and Social Blade, a YouTube analytics
website, to identify influencers that were not recognized by the
DCM Group. Among over 4 dozen influencers found, we
inspected the top 12 influencers, with over 150 million channel
views. The list of influencers, along with channel names, views,
subscribers, and short summaries can be found in Table 4. The
top 10 and most recent 10 videos were reviewed for each
channel based on the same attributes explored for Twitter and
YouTube posts shared by manufacturers. The sample of
influencers included a total of 239 videos.
Drawing from the methodology and categories originally
identified by Saylor et al [10], which explored themes in firearm
advertisements commonly appearing in print media, we
reviewed our samples of 928 tweets, 425 videos by
manufacturers, and 239 videos by influencers, across 19
characteristics, described in Table 5. We expanded our
classification system for influencers to identify various forms
of paid promotions. All characteristics listed in Table 5 were
coded as binary variables.
Tweets by manufacturers typically included photos. Tweets
often include video content, so Twitter and YouTube samples
overlap to some extent. In describing the content characteristics
of the tweet or video post, we considered the descriptive text,
photo, and video included in the message. Manufacturers and
influencers post videos in a variety of YouTube categories,
including education, sports, entertainment, people and blogs,
science and technology, and more.
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Table 4. Characteristics of YouTube firearm influencers by total channel views.
Most viewed videoDescription of influencerTotal channel viewsSubscribersInfluencer channel
460 Magnum versus Water-
melons
Retired middle school teacher Greg Kinman collaborates
with his son to review historic and modern firearms
1,143,690,1074,201,360hickok45
How Deep into Dirt Will
It Go?
Popular YouTube personality and veterinarian Matt
Carriker produces vlog-style gun reviews
983,053,2546,832,879DemolitionRanch
AA-12 Fully Automatic
Shotgun!!!
Now inactive; was one of the first and most popular gun
channels on YouTube
851,074,6616,569,240FPSRussia
RANGE TEST: THE UL-
TIMATE AR-15 MALL
NINJA TACTICAL
ZOMBIE DESTROYER!
Iraq War veteran Eric Blandford makes gun and podcast
videos with strong second amendment themes
561,054,5592,168,324Iraqveteran8888
More Proof that Evil Ex-
ists in Our World | Active
Self Protection
Navy Veteran John Correia posts videos of him analyz-
ing various self-defense encounters taken from security
camera videos
557,194,8261,385,888Active Self Protec-
tion
How many PUBG Cast
Iron skillets does it take to
stop a bullet?
Entrepreneur makes range shooting videos with his
friend
428,975,3141,874,572Edwin Sarkissian
World's Smallest Pis-
tol—2.7mm Kolibri
Ian McCollum showcases historical guns and modern
guns with unique histories
359,042,4341,211,469Forgotten Weapons
Will Bulletproof Glass
Stop A .50 Cal? slow mo-
tion Richardson Ryan
Richard Ryan and a team of others make gun videos
featuring a related brand, Black Rifle Coffee, and mili-
tary themes
352,093,2972,406,155FullMag
Weasel vs Ground Squir-
rel: Nature's Combat
A retired Air Force pilot reviews guns, knives and
weapon accessories. His videos occasionally feature his
son, photos of military service, and his wife
298,717,269796,686nutnfancy
Classic Firearms Tour!
Surplus Gun Heaven!
Sootch makes gun review and podcast style videos with
his sons and daughter: “God bless America, long live
the republic.”
231,285,288837,830sootch00
Top 5 Hilariously Bad
Carry Guns | TFBTV
A team of people produce high quantity of gun review
videos especially at events like the SHOT Show
175,649,925652,752TFB TV
5.7×28mm versus 22
Magnum
Tim Harmsen, Marine Corps veteran, reviews modern
and historical military guns; he is known for his anti-
NRAastance
158,139,701946,843Military Arms
Channel
N/A
N/Ab
6,099,970,63529,883,998Total
aNRA: National Rifle Association.
bNot applicable.
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Table 5. Characteristics assessed in Twitter and YouTube activity of major firearm manufacturers and firearm influencers.
DescriptionCharacteristics
Handgun or pistol present in photo, text, or videoHandgun
Shotgun present in photo, text, or videoShotgun
Rifle present in photo, text, or videoRifle
Characteristics of firearm described in photo, text, or videoAttributes
Post indicates or exhibits firearm use for protectionProtection
Post indicates or exhibits hunting themesHunting
Post indicates or exhibits firearm use for recreationRecreation
Post indicates or references the US Constitution’s Second Amendment2A
Post references the National Rifle AssociationNRA
Post indicates or references firearm for concealed carryConceal Carry
Post indicates or exhibits family themesFamily
Post indicates or exhibits child use of firearmsKids
Post includes a woman or quotes a womanFemale
Post indicates or exhibits patriotic themes (flags, leaders, and American pride)Patriotism
Post references or exhibits veteransVeterans
Post references or exhibits military themes (soldiers, military use of weapons, and endorsement)Military
Post references or exhibits law enforcement themes (police, thin blue line, and endorsement)Police
Post references or exhibits western or cowboy themesWestern
Post links to website with sales, visually displays the link, or presents the link verballyWeblink
Video or description identifies specific gun brand(s)
Gun Brand is Mentioneda
Video or description features paid promotion from the firearm or ammunition company
Gun-Related Paid Promotiona
Video or description features paid promotion from the nongun company
Nongun-Related Paid Promotiona
aAdditional characteristics identified for influencers.
Results
Quantitative Aggregation
A quantitative aggregation of the themes found in social media
advertisements made by gun manufacturers and influencers
helps characterize the prevailing strategies used by companies
to increase purchases of consumer guns. To summarize our
findings in social media advertising, we compared the use of
themes across social media platforms, and we explored the types
of guns advertised, advertised uses of guns, and how women,
military, and police themes enter into advertising.
Content Density and Gun Types in Firearm
Advertising
The content and themes presented in YouTube posts exceeded
the information conveyed by Twitter posts. An average of 2.2
themes was found for our sample of Twitter posts (n=928);
whereas, twice as many themes, 4.4, were found in YouTube
posts by manufacturers (n=425), and 5.3 themes were found on
average among YouTube influencer videos (n=239). In
summary, we found that twice as many themes are
communicated in YouTube posts, compared with Twitter posts,
indicating a higher density of content per YouTube post.
We found that handguns were advertised more frequently by
manufacturers, and rifles were advertised more frequently by
YouTube influencers. In comparison to shotguns or rifles,
manufacturers on Twitter and YouTube more frequently display
or refer to handguns or pistols (311/928, 30.2% of Twitter posts,
and 243/425, 56.1% of YouTube posts). YouTube influencers,
however, displayed rifles more often than other gun types
(134/239, 58.3% of posts displayed rifles). This means that over
half of the YouTube posts made by manufacturers intend to
promote handguns but over half of the YouTube influencers
promote rifles.
Gun Use in Advertisements
Of the major themes we examined, recreation was among the
most common themes in YouTube video posts. We identified
the recreational use for posts that displayed or discussed gun
range shooting or shooting targets. The hunting use was
classified in its own category (see Figure 1 for comparison).
When we split the sample to explore only the most viewed
YouTube posts, we found that 54.4% (124/228) of posts by
manufacturers and 70.0% (84/120) of influencer posts displayed
recreational gun use.
Military, patriotic, and law enforcement themes were also
commonplace: 46.7% (56/120) of the top viewed influencer
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posts depicted military themes. Retweets from all branches of
the armed forces were identified among Twitter posts made by
gun manufacturers. Patriotic theme prevalence varied depending
on the source: 1 in 5 of the most retweeted Twitter posts (108
of 484 posts), 1 in 4 of the most viewed YouTube posts by
manufacturers (63 of 228 posts), and 1 in 3 of the most viewed
YouTube posts by influencers (40 of 120 posts) conveyed US
patriotism.
Figure 1. Suggested use for guns by most popular posts (1% CIs displayed).
Women, Children, and Other Themes in Gun
Advertising
The appearance of women in firearm advertising also varied
significantly by source: the presence of a female in an
advertisement was found in more than 1 out of 5 YouTube posts
by manufacturers (108 of 425 posts), but in less than 1 out of
10 posts on Twitter (93 of 928 posts) or in those made by
YouTube influencers (23 of 239 posts). Of the posts that do
include women, handguns and gun protection themes were more
prevalent (Figure 2).
Family themes were found in fewer than 10% of Twitter or
YouTube posts. In all, 4.0% (17/426) of YouTube posts by
manufacturers included children. Posts with children showed
young children observing or participating in gun fire at shooting
ranges, displaying hunting weapons, or receiving firearms as
gifts. Although posts with children are less common than the
other themes explored, children appear twice as often in video
posts with women. The once common western and cowboy
themes were found less than 5% of the time across sources.
Second amendment themes were also found in less than 5% of
YouTube posts and 6.8% (64/928) of Twitter posts. The National
Rifle Association (NRA) mentions or promotions were identified
in 9.1% (85/928) of Twitter posts, 2.1% (9/425) of YouTube
manufacturing posts, and 14.6% (35/239) of YouTube influencer
posts. Although we also coded a theme labeled attribute, we
found that the vast majority of gun advertisements describe the
attributes of the guns. We chose to exclude this category from
substantive comparison.
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Figure 2. Prevalence of handgun- and protection-themed advertising in advertisements with and without women (1% CIs displayed).
Promotion of Internet Sales
In contrast to generally stated social media policies, social media
posts connect viewers to websites with gun sales (Figure 3).
YouTube posts more frequently provided links than Twitter
posts. YouTube influencer posts were the most likely to link to
gun sales: 8 out of 10 of the most popular YouTube influencer
videos connected viewers to sales (104 of 120 posts), and 9 out
of 10 of the most recent videos connected viewers to sales (111
of 120 posts).
In total, 64.4% (154/239) of YouTube influencer posts mention
specific gun brand names, and 19% (45/239) include gun-related
paid promotions. In total, 6.6% (16/239) of YouTube influencer
posts contain nongun paid promotions; 18.9% (91/480) of recent
Twitter posts made by gun manufacturers link to websites, but
only 9.0% (44/484) of the most popular Twitter posts link to
websites. Half of the YouTube videos by manufacturers
provided links to internet sales (228 of 425 posts).
Among Twitter posts, firearm giveaways were not uncommon,
and some manufacturers advertise and giveaway builds for
custom rifles. At the time of analysis, firearm sponsorship in
social media depicted gun use by the Major League Baseball
pitcher, Andrew Cashner; company logos on a National Hockey
League zamboni for the Nashville Predators; and as a featured
sponsor of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing.
Actress Halle Berry and actor Keanu Reeves were featured in
video and photo Twitter posts for Sig Sauer MPX. One of the
most popular retweeted posts across all manufacturers was a
post by Anderson Rifles, who retweeted a post originally made
by Texas governor, Greg Abbott: “I’m EMBARRASSED: Texas
#2 in nation for new gun purchases, behind CALIFORNIA.
Let’s pick up the pace Texans. @NRA.” The post also linked
to the Houston Chronicle article that reported the state ranks
for new gun purchases [77].
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Figure 3. Percentage of recent and most popular posts that promote gun sales websites by social media type (1% CIs displayed).
Examples of Gun Video Content
Exploitation of stranger rape and glorification of military gun
use were easily found in contemporary gun advertising. The
following descriptions of a few important case studies exhibit
gun advertising themes of protection for women, sexualization
of gun use, promotion of assault weapons use for nonmilitary
buyers, and arms production for the purpose of undermining
gun control. The guns featured in these examples include Glock
handguns, assault rifles and pistols from Sig Sauer, and AK-47s
from Palmetto State Armory.
The GLOCK and Gunny—Wrong Girl advertisement was first
posted by Glock on YouTube in 2013. This 2-min video is the
most viewed manufacturer video with over 1.3 million views.
In the video, a young woman at home, watching television in
her pajama shorts and top, is being stalked by a bearded man
in a van. She hears a knock at the door, does not see anyone,
and goes to her room to remove a gun, presumably loaded, from
a safe under her bed. Banging at the front door continues. She
stands pointing her handgun at the door, and when it bursts
open, the attacker faints. The police arrest him. No words are
spoken until R Lee Ermey, playing the medic who constrains
the attacker, concludes: “Somebody picked the wrong girl.” A
link to the Glock website is shown across the screen.
The Glock video appears to be well received, with over 7000
likes, and a like to dislike ratio of 9:1. A user with the
pseudonym UziNineMillomeetah commented, “Smokin’ hot
red head who likes Glocks? My dream girl.” The video conveys
handgun use for home protection and protection for women
against stranger rape, while normalizing gun use and supporting
defensive gun use as the first and only self-defense tactic. Gun
use is sexualized. R Lee Ermey posted an Extended Version on
his website, which received over 3 million views, but is identical
to the post by Glock. Other videos in this series of
advertisements include GLOCK and Gunny—Wrong
Convenience Store and Gunny & Glock—Wrong Guy. All of
the advertisements in this series convey the message that Glock
guns are for protection: a message that also seeks to undercut
public health evidence that the possession of firearms is a major
risk factor for violent death from homicide and suicide and
accidental death by a firearm.
Another category of advertisement worth exploring includes
messages that glorify combat weaponry for private consumption.
The Sig Sauer Sig MCX VIRTUS Mission series, including 4
advertising videos with a combined 0.75 million views, labeled
under the YouTube category Sports, offers a case study in
promotional militarism. The advertisements include the
following: Mission 1: Overwatch, Mission 2: Target Identified,
Mission 3: Vehicle Assault, and Mission 4: Tango Down. These
videos feature gun use in cinematic combat settings, specifying
the location as Ramadi, in Iraq. In Mission 1, the Sig MCX
VIRTUS is shown in use by a sniper. The text on the Mission
1 post declares: “The world’s most innovative battle rifle, the
SIG MCX VIRTUS, is ready for any mission.” The text on
YouTube accompanying the Mission 2 video includes links to
the sales website and explains, “Built from the ground up for
suppressed operation, the MCX VIRTUS can go places - and
do things - that no other rifle can.” Two messages are evident
from these advertisements: first, the Sig MCX VIRTUS is
intended for combat and lethality and second, Sig Sauer seeks
to provide products with highly customized combat performance
features to gun buyers.
Although Glock and Sig Sauer chose highly tailored video
advertisements, Palmetto State Armory, a US gunmaker of
AK-47s, posted a candid description of the company’s history
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and goals. Injured veteran and CEO Jamin McCallum stated
the following:
I hope in thirty years people look back and say…we
tried to pass gun control…but it wasn’t very
effective…because this pesky company made 20
million ARs…they got them into circulation…and now
the regulations we put into effect have little effect
because there’s so much of it out there already.
Normalization of gun use with the intent to reach the masses,
was an object of discussion by YouTube influencer, sootch00,
who stated the following:
We have got to stay on YouTube because this is where
the masses are coming. I’m telling you guys all over
the place, people tell me all the time: “I got on
YouTube, I saw a gun video, I was like, oh, I hadn't
even thought about guns in a long time.” Before long
they were watching different gun videos. They went
out and bought a gun. They got to concealed carry.
They joined the NRA, or GOA, or whatever. They
became second amendment activists. If I go to Full30,
I’m just preaching to the choir.
Full30 is a reference to a firearm video website that is sponsored
by firearm manufacturers and contains almost exclusively videos
on guns. Palmetto State Armory’s video collection includes a
video of Sarah, a gunsmith, demonstrating how to assemble an
AK-47 from parts that can be purchased from the manufacturer
[78].
YouTube influencers occasionally give weapons poor reviews.
In these moments, influencers may convey certain health
warnings on a variety of factors. Influencers observed gas in
your face from weapons use, commented on offending smells,
eye irritation, potential risks of hearing loss, concerns about
extremely high temperatures of the firearms after use, and
observations about weight and recoil of weapons. Complaints
like these by military personnel have been important in directing
health research to explore the respiratory effects of occupational
gunfire, including two recent Norwegian studies that found
significant declines in forced expiratory volume even 24 hours
after shooting practice, and reports of respiratory symptoms
similar to metal fume fever in almost all participants [79,80].
The authors explain that “soldiers are exposed to emissions of
CO, particulate matter (dust), combustion products, copper,
zinc, bismuth, lead and tin,” and “bullets without potentially
harmful emissions are not available” [80]. Unfortunately, these
important health messages are lost to the more common tropes
from influencers describing the fun of recreational shooting.
When Saylor et al [10] explored firearm advertising in gun
magazines from 2001 to 2002, they found a circulation of 4.2
million, with hunting and outdoors (20.4%) and patriotism
(15.0%) as the most common themes identified in their sample.
These themes continue to be prevalent. However, the reach of
videos, based on measurements of views, appears to be
significantly wider than print materials.
Discussion
Principal Findings
We demonstrate that firearm manufacturers use Twitter and
YouTube to promote the sale of guns to millions of viewers.
The renewed interest in and attention to firearm advertising
permits an important deepening and sophistication to public
debate in the United States on the scope of possible responses
to gun violence. Like all consumer products, firearms have a
life cycle that requires scrutiny and is subject to intervention
through multiple phases: design, manufacturing, retail,
distribution, and disposal.
A focus on firearm advertising demonstrates that marketing to
promote retail and distribution is one area, among many, that
may be considered for both research and revised rule making.
Better understanding the life cycle of guns raises both
opportunities and significant challenges to where and how we
work as communities to reduce lethal violence. This section
first explores opportunities for changes in the US legislation
that can help reduce the widespread proliferation of small arms
in the United States by limiting advertising and suggests avenues
for future research. After identifying opportunities, major
challenges are listed to propose subsequent research and dialog
on these more embedded obstacles to achieving peaceful
communities.
Opportunities
Specific changes in the legislation are possible. The American
Public Health Association collaborated with 14 partners to write
to the US Congress in favor of federal research funding on gun
violence, currently limited by the 1996 Dickey amendment [81].
Several public health scholars have argued in favor of repealing
the PLCAA [14,40]. Repealing the PLCAA would remove
protections for manufacturers and dealers from lawsuits related
to harmful gun use and false advertising pertaining to gun use
as a form of protection.
Organizations such as Moms Demand Action have made
progress in lobbying retail stores, such as Starbucks and Target,
to prohibit guns from their premises. Furthermore, private sector
policies may shape retail behavior. The Washington Post
reported an example where the software marketing agency,
Salesforce, threatened to withhold services for distributors of
military-style rifles [82]. Both private and public actions, from
grassroots and from the national stage, can help build a culture
of nonviolence; and, should the PLCAA and Tiahrt Amendment
be repealed, 1 advertisement agency has already proposed
graphic warning labels for ammunition [83].
The work presented here studies how firearm manufacturers
use social media for advertising. However, present advocacy
efforts to reduce gun violence have made significant progress
in connecting gun control advocates by using social media to
promote community engagement and campaigns to incentivize
corporate changes. For example, the Moms Demand Action
campaign explicitly discusses the strategy to use social media
to unite gun control advocates [84]. Every town for Gun Safety
[85] has similarly adopted a social media approach. Web-based
media coverage of gun violence from The Trace provides an
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example of generating a counternarrative to the NRA’s
Web-based media [86]. Academic consortiums, such as those
emerging from work by the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence,
can assist particularly during strategic opportunities when
lawmakers are focused on gun violence [87]. All this is to say
gun control advocacy and its relative success in relation to gun
promotion deserves deeper consideration and can contribute to
best practice guidelines or lessons learned materials for local
health departments and advocacy groups.
Additional research can contribute to our understanding of
firearm advertising. For instance, future work in this area could
explore the local use of social media advertising by small
business producers of firearms and the interaction of these uses
with larger companies. The state of New Jersey offers a simple
example. Among the states with relatively few firearm
manufacturers, New Jersey ranked 46th in the number of firearm
manufacturers, with 28 federally licensed firearm manufacturers
and one major producer: Henry Repeating Arms. However, 79%
(22/28) of New Jersey manufacturers maintain websites, most
of which connect users to sales and social media. Although the
sales may be relatively small for these producers, their
community impact on firearm social media may be significant.
As suggested in the literature on health communications
generally [88], understanding the media commonly viewed by
gun owners can help in the design of brochures, posters,
webpages, and informational materials that may reinforce
recommendations made by physicians on the topic of gun
ownership (eg, facts on gun ownership and health risks
introduced into homes with guns and evidence of decades of
predatory advertising for the purpose of increasing sales).
Twitter is also used by local health departments for health
communications, and scholars have suggested that these
programs might engage community members, to a greater extent,
in a dialog about local health [89]. Social media also offers the
possibility for public health engagement in the chat features, as
were identified in some protobacco YouTube posts [52]. Some
research has gone as far to suggest that policy might help ensure
a prohealth balance to available media [90].
Obstacles
The globalization of media presents an obstacle for regulation,
although some countries do legislate restrictions [91]. An
emerging concern from the public health literature on social
media and tobacco use is that social media are not neutral
platforms. Social media companies are commercial entities, not
public goods, despite efforts by these companies to appear free
and open [71,72]. Significant progress made toward restrictions
on tobacco, eg, are facing reversal owing to the combination of
e-cigarettes, internet advertising, and internet sales. Youths’
use of e-cigarettes has been declared an epidemic [92].
The power of industry, where full-time employees are paid to
produce advertising content—photographs, videos,
entertainment, and compelling messaging—for social media
platforms, is not counteracted by advocacy messaging or
ordinary people who hold the majority opinion [93]: firearm
ownership and tobacco use are not health behaviors that should
be encouraged or modeled. Firearm manufacturers are making
efforts to fully exploit social media channels for commercial
purposes.
The incentive to profit from consumer products exceeds the
current social capacity to counterpose these messages,
suggesting that health interventions are necessary. However,
guidelines are available for communicating public health
objectives effectively [94,95]; and, several organizational
structures serve to advocate for changes in corporate behavior:
national organizations, coalitions, health professionals and
researchers, legal groups, local organizations, and other
participants in campaigns [37]. These groups can, then, engage
in information gathering, legislative action, electoral activities,
litigation, actions aimed at corporations, and education,
information, and mobilization campaigns [37]. Roberts suggests
that democratic policy interventions and partnerships with public
libraries may be more suitable approaches to combating
misinformation spread by social media than working within
social media settings [72]. This paper contributes to the larger
discussion about opportunities for regulating the media that
promote harmful health behaviors in the United States and
internationally.
Unfortunately, rather than entering at the peak of adoption,
public health work is now addressing firearms, tobacco, and
marijuana in a phase of escalation. From this point of view, gun
violence and health effects from tobacco, e-cigarettes, and
marijuana are anticipated to increase and not decline in the
foreseeable future. As some firearm manufacturers and dealers
have increased sales of gun parts to avoid regulation, concerns
about circulation and social media distribution of 3D printed
guns remain on the horizon. A future legislation and policy
intervention to limit the advertising and content viewed by
children is likely [70]. Such work might consider the
characteristics and strategies used by influencers.
The domestic production and distribution of small arms in the
United States contributes to regional and global health
challenges. While reporting on the trial of Joaquin Guzman, the
Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo, the PBS Newshour
stated that “one of El Chapo’s deputies testified that 99 percent
of the guns he purchased came from the United States” [96].
Actions taken to understand and intervene in the life cycle of
US firearms can reduce gun violence not only in the United
States, but regionally and around the world. In this way, by
focusing upstream on gun production, US public health actors
can make substantive contributions to the UN Sustainable
Development Goal 16: “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies
for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all
and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all
levels.” Specifically, Target 16.1 seeks to “significantly reduce
all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere” [97].
In building consensus and shifting cultural norms on gun
ownership and use, US military and law enforcement present
the largest obstacles, but also the most important opportunities
for reducing gun violence. Public health collaboration with the
military and law enforcement is absolutely necessary for
building effective actions. For example, public health review,
health impact assessments, and environmental impact
assessments of military and law enforcement small arms
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purchasing and communications could provide agencies with
vital information about the civilian and regional health
consequences of their choices.
Any restrictions on military and law enforcement agencies from
training soldiers and police officers on gun safety in the home
should be lifted. Section 1062 of Public Law 111-383, which
“forbids the Department of Defense to ‘collect or record’ any
information about private firearms of members of the military
or its civilian employees,…” [14] should be repealed. Social
media produced by the military and law enforcement currently
works to the benefit of firearm producers: future social media
produced by these government agencies should consider
opportunities to promote peace and stability, in our homes,
communities, and around the world. Perhaps the Department
of Defense (DoD) might reconsider social media use altogether
given the commercial, nonpublic, and obscurely regulated nature
of these platforms.
In some cases, helpful changes to firearm advertising could
emerge from enforcement of existing policy. According to DoD
instructions on visual information:
Service members must comply with DoD 5500.07-R,
DoDI 8550.01, and DoDI 1334.01 prior to permitting
NFEs (Non-Federal Entities) to use their image in
uniform. Both active duty Military Service members
and former members are prohibited from wearing
their uniform in connection with commercial interests
when an inference of official sponsorship for the
activity or interest could be drawn. [98]
Several influencers, such as nutnfancy, may be in violation of
this policy, and the DoD may be able to take steps to reduce the
reach of influencers who gain credibility in promoting firearm
sales by visually displaying their current or past military
experience. The DoD disclaimer, “The appearance of U.S.
Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply
or constitute DoD endorsement,” was not identified in firearm
advertising that used armed service symbols and images. Sig
Sauer, eg, explicitly uses DoD visual material as an
endorsement, without disclaimers.
Limitations and Future Research
By focusing primarily on social media advertising, we were not
able to demonstrate why, despite tighter restrictions on cable
advertising, firearm production rose and stayed high, during
both Obama and Trump administrations. A market analysis that
includes careful consideration of the firearm economy over the
past decade may help reveal the causes in the overall purchasing
trends for guns. Twitter and YouTube may be used for a
time-series analysis and possibly for uncovering the relative
market power of social media in influencing global firearm
sales.
The methodology that this paper pursued was based on previous
research on print advertising. By selecting the most recent and
most popular Twitter and YouTube posts, we generated a
systematic search and analysis of major gun manufacturer and
popular influencer use of these services. Our search was not a
simple random sample. We cannot make inferences about the
less-viewed influencers that we did not assess. We also cannot
infer social media themes used by very small gun manufacturers.
We were also not able to examine gun use on Instagram or
Facebook, which are also commonly used social media services.
The exploration of these forums is an opportunity for future
research.
By choosing to evaluate the 20 most recent tweets and 10 most
recent videos, the periods for the evaluated posts varied
depending on the frequency and temporal distribution of posts
made by manufacturers and influencers. We sought to explore
variations in posts based on popularity and recency to identify
differences between the two. Our intention was to characterize
the advertising themes and presence of links to sales found in
social media by top gun producers and influencers, and not to
examine causal relationships. Future research could benefit from
better understanding contemporary firearm consumers and the
influence of advertising on their decision making.
Continued work in the domain of firearm advertising can help
deepen the understanding of other themes and strategies used
by manufacturers. For example, safety can be a specific theme
explored in detail. Connections to religion were observed and
worth exploring further. Race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation
were not explored in detail here, but would be interesting to
study further. Our work was limited to English-only social
media: advertising in other languages would make for an
interesting comparison. Podcasts are another new source of
internet content distribution that would be helpful to analyze.
Social media and print media across audiences, specifically the
police and military, need more attention. Gun advertisements
appear to be printed by staff writers across magazines and
Web-based sources. While researching for this paper, we found
a Glock advertisement surface word-for-word in articles, not
as advertisements or sponsored content, but as reader content
for Police magazine [99] and Military Times [100]. The copied
text includes links to the Glock website. How frequently are
gun advertisements appearing as news articles? What are the
perceptions about the legitimacy of this media? Who are the
audiences for these magazines? Future research could help shed
light on these questions.
The informational material on the US Army Picatinny Arsenal
website, which engages in small arms acquisition for the armed
forces, offers an interesting contrast to the way firearm
advertisers characterize guns. The website describes the purpose
of the arsenal as providing nearly 90% of the Army’s lethality
[101]. Lethality seems a more suitable term for describing the
purpose of firearms. In analyzing firearm advertising, we
observed numerous instances of sharing of information from
the armed services and promotional videos highlighting the
bravery of specific servicemen. Future work could explore social
media use by the US armed services and law enforcement to
understand how these agencies respond to or incorporate
advertising from firearm manufacturers into their information
sharing with the communities that follow them.
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Acknowledgments
LJ contributed to the text, data collection, classification, and visualization. CD designed and classified most of the YouTube
manufacturer database. JK designed and classified most of the YouTube influencer database. All authors contributed to data
collection of all datasets, text, and measures used in visualization, providing verification and validation. The authors would like
to acknowledge the Drew University Digital Humanities initiative, supported by a grant from Andrew W Mellon Foundation.
Codirectors Wendy Kolmar and Lee Arnold supported our research financially and intellectually through the Digital Humanities
Summer Institute (DHSI). We also received helpful feedback from the student and faculty research teams in DHSI.
Conflicts of Interest
None declared.
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Abbreviations
ATF: Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco, and Explosives
DCM: Danger Close Media
DHSI: Digital Humanities Summer Institute
NRA: National Rifle Association
PLCAA: Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act
Edited by G Eysenbach; submitted 01.08.19; peer-reviewed by D Capurro, E Da Silva; comments to author 20.09.19; revised version
received 15.11.19; accepted 13.01.20; published 27.03.20
Please cite as:
Jordan L, Kalin J, Dabrowski C
Characteristics of Gun Advertisements on Social Media: Systematic Search and Content Analysis of Twitter and YouTube Posts
J Med Internet Res 2020;22(3):e15736
URL: http://www.jmir.org/2020/3/e15736/
doi: 10.2196/15736
PMID: 32217496
©Lisa Jordan, James Kalin, Colleen Dabrowski. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research
(http://www.jmir.org), 27.03.2020. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete
bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information
must be included.
J Med Internet Res 2020 | vol. 22 | iss. 3 | e15736 | p. 20http://www.jmir.org/2020/3/e15736/ (page number not for citation purposes)
Jordan et alJOURNAL OF MEDICAL INTERNET RESEARCH
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