According to a survey conducted by Sandy Hook Promise and KRC Research—a nonprofit organization founded by family members of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting with the goal of preventing gun violence through educational programs—82 percent of U.S. children between the ages of 10 and 17 have seen at least one gun advertisement online. Social media is flooded with content showing guns decorated with children’s characters, such as Hello Kitty or Batman, and influencers promoting them as if they were toys.
Federal law prohibits the possession of short guns by minors, but there are no national restrictions on gun advertising aimed at them. According to experts, this strategy closely resembles those adopted in the past by Big Tobacco and the alcohol industry: win over future customers while they are still young and impressionable.
“This is a serious public health problem,” says David Rosenbloom, a professor at Boston University. “You normalize gun ownership and associate it with status, masculinity and power, at the very time when boys are looking for role models.”
The United States currently has one of the world’s highest rates of gun deaths unrelated to armed conflict. According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 48,830 people died from gunshot wounds in 2021, including nearly 21,000 homicide victims and more than 26,000 suicides.
In recent years, some lawmakers have tried to limit the way firearms are promoted to younger people. In 2023, Democratic Senator Ed Markey proposed the Protecting Kids from Gun Marketing Act, aimed at countering advertising campaigns targeting minors.
In August of that year, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed the Firearm Industry Responsibility Act, a law banning gun advertising aimed at children. However, in September 2023, a federal appeals court blocked similar legislation in California, arguing that it violated free speech and was unlikely to help reduce gun violence.
