In 2019, with the horrors of the Parkland mass shooting still fresh in most Americans’ minds, the gun industry funded a study to “determine the most effective ways of communicating with the American public about the benefits of firearm ownership.”
Its findings, which were not shared with the public, indicated that Americans who support gun ownership could be persuaded by the value of reforms that are vigorously opposed by the gun industry, gun rights groups, and Republican lawmakers. Those reforms include universal background checks, red flag laws, and even a gun registry, which vocal gun rights advocates have falsely claimed made the Holocaust possible.
The study, titled “Communicating With The American Public About Firearm Ownership,” was commissioned by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a nonprofit that serves as the gun industry’s trade group, founded to ensure the survival of its dues-paying members, which include firearms manufacturers, retailers, and ranges. An online survey administered to more than 4,000 Americans tested the power of 24 pro-gun and 24 anti-gun messages. The respondents were divided into multiple categories, including those who had a “positive feeling” about gun ownership.
While the study does not cite Parkland or any mass shooting as a reason for its undertaking, it was conducted at a moment when substantial reforms seemed possible. The indiscriminate killing of students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had galvanized the nation in a manner not seen since Newtown, and the pressure for regulation and accountability was high. Many young Americans, in particular, who had come of age as mass shootings became commonplace, held a negative view of firearms, according to industry research, and that posed a problem for future business. There was a need, it seemed, to find the most resonant ways to convey the value of gun ownership.
“While the sports shooting industry devotes substantial funding and effort to communications initiatives to boost participation in and support for sport shooting and firearms,” the study notes, “little reliable data exists indicating which messages and communications themes work best.”
The Trace and Rolling Stone obtained a copy of the study for an ongoing series that seeks to unearth what the gun industry conceals about its customers and practices from public view. The NSSF declined to provide a comment for this story.
On Wednesday, August 27, a 23-year-old shooter, who legally purchased three firearms recovered by law enforcement, opened fire at a Catholic school in Minneapolis, murdering two children and injuring 14 more before taking their own life. The setting and the ages of the victims evoked the 2022 massacre in Uvalde, Texas. That year, President Joe Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law, a gun bill that contained politically safe reforms, such as the allocation of funds for mental health resources and school safety.
After decades of congressional gridlock on the issue, the package was hailed as an epic breakthrough, a valiant example of bipartisan compromise that still mostly relied on Democrats for passage. The NSSF study, then, raises a key question: Why have Republican lawmakers largely stood against more significant reforms, let alone any reform at all? As the study indicates, many people with a favorable view of gun ownership appear open to going further than the lawmakers and special interests who represent them.
For people who the study says have a “positive feeling” about gun ownership, the study ranks the top five arguments for and against it. The top arguments in favor almost all revolve around rights, beginning with “Self-defense is a basic right,” followed by “Americans have the right to own a gun,” “It’s people’s right as Americans to own a gun,” and “Gun ownership is protected by the Constitution.” The remaining argument, which came in at number three, states, “Owning and training with a firearm teaches important skills, including responsibility, accuracy, safe gun handling, self-defense, and strategies to avoid dangerous situations.”
When told to rank the “most effective arguments against firearm ownership,” these same respondents chose policies that the gun industry and Republican lawmakers actively oppose. The argument the group found to be most effective is: “Universal background checks for gun sales and transactions are supported by approximately 85 percent of Americans.”
Other statements deemed highly effective by these respondents included “Guns should be licensed just like cars,” “State red flag laws to remove guns from those who show warning signs of violence keep guns out of the hands of those who would harm themselves or others,” “Gun violence is an epidemic in the U.S.,” and “Common sense gun laws to close loopholes in current gun laws will save lives and prevent gun violence.”
And yet, since this survey was conducted, Republicans have blocked efforts to pass universal background checks, which would expand the procedure to all firearms transfers instead of just commercial sales. Meanwhile, gun licensing, or rather a federal law that would require Americans to register their firearms with authorities, has been a taboo subject for many years, during which ardent gun rights advocates have argued that a registry would allow the government to disarm the populace and impose totalitarian control. The NSSF itself has asserted that a registry would “not stop criminals, nor reduce violent crime.”
For a moment after Parkland, there was bipartisan support for red flag laws, also known as Extreme Risk Protection laws, which allow a person to petition a court to have a loved one’s guns temporarily removed from their home if they pose an imminent danger to themselves or others. Then Republican lawmakers and gun rights groups reneged, and now there is a legal campaign to render red flag laws unconstitutional.
Many arguments that the public regularly hears in defense of gun rights were not ranked as highly persuasive in the study, confirming other research conducted by the NSSF, which The Trace and Rolling Stone described in July. Those arguments include: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” “Criminals feel safe in gun-free zones because they know no one else will have a gun but them,” and “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.”
Of the 24 pro-gun arguments, the one that resonates the least demonstrates that Americans tend to place firearms in a category separate from other potentially dangerous products, despite industry assertions that such distinctions are meritless. “Cars kill people,” goes the statement, “should we outlaw cars?”
