Here's How We Can Defeat The Gun Culture - Without Congress

[Ocelot II]

There’s no constitutional amendment banning a long-term national ad campaign pushing back aggressively against gun culture.

Yes, guns have been hardwired into our national DNA ever since Bunker Hill and, to a slightly lesser extent, so have cigarettes. But in the face of almost universal smoking, the pushback began. In the year 2000, the Truth Initiative began running an immensely disturbing but effective campaign aimed at stripping away the “cool” allure of smoking. The ads were graphic and relentless. Likewise, the Centers for Disease Control ran its own series ads. Combined, these short videos were convincing enough to transform something that was romanticized in pop culture while intrinsic to social lives, into a grisly, disfiguring, useless, deadly addiction.
...
Similarly, and with enough time and money, it’d be relatively easy to turn our fetish for guns into the same sort of social liability. We can transform gun ownership from being toxically masculine to pathetic and silly with just the right message, illustrating what people think guns are all about contrasted against what they actually do. Make the extremists seem pathetic and homicidal, while emphasizing that reliance on firearms is cowardly and meek, rather than masculine and tough.

If Hollywood also got involved by coordinating its message, commenting negatively on the use of guns in shows and movies, and if the music industry joined in – if our liberal pop culture lined up with the campaign to reframe guns from a Revolutionary necessity to a piece of phallic hardware with no other purpose but to kill things, we can turn the tide on this madness. There aren’t any institutional roadblocks: no courts, no senators, no filibuster. All it’ll take is a sizable investment and plenty of tenacity for the long term – and, yes, it will require decades to achieve. But it’s been done before with another deadly sector of our economy, and so it can be done again. Hell, there’s a template already in place thanks to the CDC and the Truth Initiative.

https://thebanter.substack.com/p/heres-how-we-can-defeat-the-gun-culture?s=r

[NCjack]

1. Good idea. Oscar Show could award movies and actors that do not glorify guns.

[Brenda]

2. There would have to be a huge change within entertainment

Look at what the most popular, biggest blockbuster, highest money-making TV/Movies out there. ALL of them are based on violence and weapons. From CSI to Hawaii 50 to Mission Impossible to John Wick to I could go on forever.

Music? Look how even the Left ridiculed Tipper's criticism about music and video game violence.

Not gonna happen.

[highplainsdem]

3. I posted a couple of days ago that Hollywood needs to get involved, but in terms

of commercials, which the industry can easily create and fund:

https://democraticunderground.com/100216723823

Those would reach a much larger audience than any film.

Films with an anti-gun message are too easily avoided by the people who should be reached. Plus films are enormously expensive to make.

As for the music industry -- yes, it could be more interested in social justice. I've posted recently about a German band, Toten Hosen, a punk rock band that's been quite willing to criticize Angela Merkel, and even got an apology from her:

https://democraticunderground.com/10181664814

We saw a lot more concern with social justice from musicians in the '60s and '70s because the boomers buying that music expected and welcomed it.

These days a lot more artists prefer to play it safe.

The carnage from guns is probably best responded to with commercials, too, rather than songs. Maximum impact (no pun intended) in seconds, driving that message home in a way words simply can't. Especially if you're trying to combine the words with music people will want to keep listening to. You can convey grief very well in a song, though sometimes people will turn it off if it's too much for them. Conveying horror in a song is more difficult.

[Samrob]

4. The biggest thing that made my spouse and me quit smoking was the pestering by our kids.

Last edited Thu May 26, 2022, 05:03 PM - Edit history (1)

The public schools did a masterful job of getting our kids to understand that smoking was bad and could eventually kill you. With that in mind, our kids came home every day and when would start to light up they would stop us and give us all that they learned about smoking. It got so bad we began to go sit in the car to take a smoke until the oldest followed us one evening and banged on our car window. We made a pact with them to keep them from being scared that we might die or get cancer. We told them we would cut back to two a day for a week, then one a day for a week. One day I went to purchase our usual cartoon of cigs and noticed the spouses last carton was still unopened. He told me he had stopped cold for over a month and I didn't even notice. Within a week I was done and never looked back.

[JudyM]

6. What an excellent story, honoring your kids' outcry about your health.

I love this. Congrats to all of you!

[Roland99]

5. The Lakoff method? Framing

[AKwannabe]

7. Should add video games makers

Nintendo and PlayStation and other gaming devices with the games that have horrific gun violence and where many teens get to kill kill kill kill kill kill to their hearts desires. Teaches them they can do this in real life but doesn’t teach them the consequences.