{"id":1230,"date":"2024-01-16T03:36:45","date_gmt":"2024-01-16T03:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/?page_id=1230"},"modified":"2024-01-16T06:51:53","modified_gmt":"2024-01-16T06:51:53","slug":"guns_detail_3","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/?page_id=1230","title":{"rendered":"GUNS_DETAIL_3"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\">GUNS<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\"><strong>OCTOBER 24, 2023<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How the Gun Industry Targets Kids Using TikTok, Instagram, and Video Games<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A new report exposes the marketing of AR-15s and other firearms to America\u2019s youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile\" style=\"grid-template-columns:15% auto\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" src=\"http:\/\/aiecasia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/follmanmark-web.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1253 size-full\"\/><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<ul>\n<li>MARK FOLLMAN<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>National Affairs Editor<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"321\" height=\"180\" src=\"http:\/\/aiecasia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/102423_22Untargeting-Kids22_SHP.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-648\" style=\"width:760px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/102423_22Untargeting-Kids22_SHP.webp 321w, https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/102423_22Untargeting-Kids22_SHP-300x168.webp 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 321px) 100vw, 321px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A sockeye (red salmon, Oncorhynchus nerka) in British Columbia&#8217;s Horsefly River.<strong>Mark Conlin\/VW PICS\/UIG\/Getty<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>Since 2020, firearms<\/strong>\u00a0have been the\u00a0leading cause\u00a0of death for children and teens in America, killing\u00a0thousands each year. Shootings and threats of gun violence in the nation\u2019s schools have also\u00a0escalated\u00a0sharply. These trends are accompanied by another stark and evolving phenomenon: insidious marketing to kids by the gun industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The promotional tactics that gun manufacturers and sellers use with social media, video games, and other entertainment are the focus of a new report from Sandy Hook Promise, the gun-violence prevention group led by parents of children killed in the elementary school massacre 11 years ago in Newtown, Connecticut. The report, \u201cUntargeting Kids,\u201d highlights how the gun industry shifted away from a longstanding culture of safety and responsibility to cultivate a market of young consumers\u2014a demographic inundated with social media and uniquely vulnerable, according to researchers, to provocative and seductive messaging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOur nation has experienced a tremendous spike in firearm deaths just as gun marketing made a transition from selling firearms for hunting and sporting to marketing highly lethal, military-style weapons to civilians, including children,\u201d the report says. \u201cThat marketing is supposedly aimed at adults, but the platforms those influencers appear on, including TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, are largely populated by kids.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Social media companies have banned the direct sales of guns on their platforms, but that doesn\u2019t stop the firearms\u00a0industry from promoting or amplifying gun content from high-profile figures. One example cited in the report is a January 2020 Instagram\u00a0post\u00a0from gun manufacturer Daniel Defense that features a photo of music star Post Malone showing off one of its AR-15-style rifles, the MK18, while standing in front of a bar stocked with liquor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMK18 got me feeling like a rock star,\u201d says the Daniel Defense comment, appended with music and fire emojis and a handful of hashtags, including \u201c#gunporn.\u201d The post has drawn nearly 30,000 likes from Instagram users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile\" style=\"grid-template-columns:15% auto\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"283\" height=\"354\" src=\"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Screen-Shot-2023-10-23-at-10.34.19-AM.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1259 size-full\" srcset=\"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Screen-Shot-2023-10-23-at-10.34.19-AM.webp 283w, https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Screen-Shot-2023-10-23-at-10.34.19-AM-240x300.webp 240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 283px) 100vw, 283px\" \/><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p>The 18-year-old mass shooter who attacked Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022\u00a0used a Daniel Defense AR-15-style rifle. The company now faces a lawsuit from the family of one of the fourth graders killed in the massacre, which\u00a0alleges\u00a0that Daniel Defense targets \u201cyoung male consumers\u201d through its marketing on various social media platforms. The company, which did not respond to a request for comment, has\u00a0called\u00a0the lawsuit \u201cfrivolous\u201d and \u201clegally unfounded.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Online videos accessible to youth are another source of concern. According to one study highlighted in the Sandy Hook Promise report, YouTube\u00a0serves up algorithmic content glorifying assault weapons and offering instructions on everything from how to assemble rapid-fire mechanisms and \u201cghost guns\u201d to shooting through bulletproof glass and acquiring firearms illegally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The gun industry has favored aggressive marketing for more than a decade, as companies realized that vast profits could be made from the increasingly popular AR-15-style rifles. One early Daniel Defense ad suggested civilian buyers could be just like US special forces, overlaying a battlefield scene with the slogan, \u201cUse What They Use.\u201d As I wrote recently in\u00a0a review of\u00a0<em>American Gun<\/em>, a deeply reported new book tracing the history of the AR-15, documents revealed in a lawsuit by Sandy Hook families showed how gunmakers intentionally used brash themes of masculinity and militarism to help sell these weapons. Among such efforts was also the infamous \u201cMan Card\u201d campaign that Remington had used to promote the Bushmaster rifle later wielded by the Sandy Hook mass shooter. Last year, nearly a decade after that massacre, Remington agreed to a landmark\u00a0$73 million civil settlement\u00a0with victims\u2019 families.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The AR-15 is a weapon of war, originally built for highly efficient killing on the battlefield. (The US military produced it as the M16 during Vietnam.) Its design innovations included firing a relatively small bullet at exceptionally high velocity. As&nbsp;<em>American Gun<\/em>&nbsp;also details, the inventor of the AR-15 discovered that the .223-caliber projectile became unstable upon impact and \u201ctore through the body like a tornado, spiraling and tipping as it obliterated organs, blood vessels, and bones.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Violent video games have been blamed for causing mass shootings ever since\u00a0Columbine\u00a0in 1999. While there\u2019s\u00a0no evidence\u00a0supporting that theory, various young perpetrators over the years have fixated on graphically violent games or movies when spiraling into isolation, anger, and despair,\u00a0a correlation that has raised\u00a0questions and concerns among threat assessment experts. Nonetheless, gun companies have long been eager to have their AR-15s depicted in first-person shooters as a form of advertising, a tactic one sales executive called \u201cseed planting\u201d for a new generation of consumers. The\u00a0<em>Washington Post\u00a0<\/em>reported in a recent series on the AR-15 that representatives of two gun manufacturers met at a Nevada shooting range in 2010 with technicians working on \u201cCall of Duty\u201d to record the firing of AR-15s for the blockbuster gaming series. \u201cNo detail, even the click of inserting a magazine, was too small to capture, participants said,\u201d\u00a0according to\u00a0the\u00a0<em>Post.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The report from Sandy Hook Promise also highlights how ingrained this current gun culture has become with hyper-realistic video games, in which tricked-out guns are \u201cprized commodities\u201d and \u201cplayers need to rack up sufficient \u2018kills\u2019 to \u2018unlock\u2019 particular weapons or add attachments to enhance or customize their firearms.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How the Gun Industry Targets Kids Using TikTok, Instagram, and Video Games A new report exposes the marketing of AR-15s and other firearms to America\u2019s youth. Since 2020, firearms\u00a0have been the\u00a0leading cause\u00a0of death for children and teens in America, killing\u00a0thousands each year. Shootings and threats of gun violence in the nation\u2019s schools have also\u00a0escalated\u00a0sharply. These&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/?page_id=1230\" class=\"\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">GUNS_DETAIL_3<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":540,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"on","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_ti_tpc_template_sync":false,"_ti_tpc_template_id":"","footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1230"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1230"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1260,"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1230\/revisions\/1260"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}