Are You Good With That?

Our “Are You Good With That?” campaign taking on the gun industry’s #KillerBusiness

Lockdowns instead of learning. Funerals instead of graduations. Guns are the number one killer of kids in America and yet the gun industry is laughing all the way to the bank. But our generation will have the last laugh.

Students Demand Action (SDA) is at the forefront of our work to hold this #KillerBusiness accountable for its role in fueling gun violence. Using dark humor, gun industry caricatures, and ripped-from-the-headlines themes, our campaign presents young people with an urgent message: The gun industry is selling your safety. Are you good with that?  The campaign asks a simple question while pulling back the curtain on the people profiting from our suffering—and seeks to empower a generation of activists who can change the course of history on this issue. We will have the last laugh.

Read more about how and why we developed this campaign below.

The problem

The gun industry is made up of people and companies that profit from the sale of guns and ammunition. Collectively, the industry rakes in more than $9 billion each year and includes gun manufacturers, gun dealers, marketers, and lobbyists, among others. But despite fueling a public health crisis that kills 125 people each day, wounds over 200 more, and traumatizes entire communities, the gun industry is rarely held accountable for the harm, death, and trauma its products cause.

The Are You Good With That? campaign started with the observation that while gun violence is a rising public safety threat, the gun industry is more protected and removed from the consequences of its business practices than ever before. Fueled by greed and indifference, the gun industry has prioritized its profits over people’s lives. As previous SDA #KillerBusiness campaigns have pointed out, if the gun industry wanted to, it could be part of the solution in making its products safer and reform its business practices to save lives. Instead, gun companies have chosen to either sit on the sidelines or take steps to actively make America’s gun violence crisis worse.

Of course, the gun industry isn’t the first to profit off of a public health crisis. But when the business practices of tobacco companies or opioid makers have caused death, trauma, and illness, they’ve been held accountable for the suffering they’ve caused—and the gun industry shouldn’t be any different.

The research

Given SDA’s focus on student organizers, a campaign that speaks directly to Gen Z is a natural fit. But we also decided to talk to young people because we have grown up with mass shootings and lockdown drills being the norm. We are the ones most impacted by this crisis in our everyday lives—and it’s our generation who will be left with this problem decades after the fat cats in the gun industry retire.

To inform our campaign, we conducted a first-of-its-kind survey of more than 2,000 members of Gen Z to get their opinions on guns, gun violence, and public safety. We followed up with in-depth focus groups and listening sessions to dig into these issues even further. What we found was that the vast majority of Gen Z wants commonsense gun safety measures: 60% said gun laws in our country are “too lenient.” Support for background checks (84%), mandatory gun safety classes (80%), red flag laws (75%), and secure storage laws (69%), among others, all tested very high. However, in focus group discussions, we learned that many young people find the public discourse on guns to be stale and predictable.

Many young people live in perpetual fear of gun violence, with 37% of the survey respondents reporting either being personally affected by gun violence, or knowing someone who has. Many respondents reported significant anxiety about the issue of gun violence.  More broadly, young people reported often using humor, particularly dark humor, in communicating with peers about controversial and anxiety-provoking issues, such as gun violence.

And when it comes to the gun industry, Gen Z believes in corporate accountability: If a gun company does something that increases the chance of gun violence in this country, a vast majority (77%) of Gen Z wants to see that company held accountable for its actions. But our survey findings also indicated that the majority of young people have not yet formed a view about the gun industry. Put another way, young people worry a lot about guns and gun violence, but haven’t yet spent much time talking about the gun industry that is fueling this crisis.

That sparked an idea for us: if young people want to have a new conversation about guns and gun violence, we could help start it—and that’s how the Are You Good With That? facet of our #KillerBusiness campaign was born.

The campaign

What if we could see the cynical decisions and deceptions that make up the daily business practices of the gun industry?  The anchor video of the campaign pulls back the curtain and reveals a video call with Don the Greedy Gun Maker, Leslie the Tricky Marketer, and Gary the Rogue Seller. While the call is fictitious, the issues raised in it are not. When Gary talks about his guns “being used in crimes all the damn time,” it goes right to one of our core critiques of the gun industry: their refusal to stop selling guns to bad apple dealers who, whether through greed, inaction, or negligence, keep allowing them to fall into the hands of criminals. When Leslie unveils the “new plushy AR-15 toys” that the kids will love, we’re calling out the gun industry’s reckless marketing to children who aren’t even old enough to buy a gun. When Don gives the order to “stoke fear” so that “our guns are the only solution,” we’re holding up a mirror to an industry that continuously whips up fear and conflict in order to make a buck. Overall, our campaign utilizes dark humor to make a dark point about the very real role of guns in America: The gun industry sells your safety to make big money.

We know this campaign is effective in moving young people because we tested it. In fact, this is one of the most persuasive sets of message testing we’ve ever gotten back. For instance, watching the campaign’s main video increased negative sentiment about the gun industry among test respondents by 15 percentage points—and the shifts occurred in all demographics (not just young people, but also individuals that identified as politically conservative or moderate). In addition, testing confirmed the effectiveness of our shorter campaign videos which also increased negative sentiment about the gun industry and increased the belief that the industry should be accountable for gun violence.

Goals of the “Are You Good With That?” campaign

1. Start a dialogue within Gen Z about how the gun industry values its own profits over our lives.
2. Expose the lies that the gun industry utilizes to manipulate people, stoke fear, and sell more guns.
3. Encourage young people to learn more, call for gun industry accountability, and/or join Students Demand Action.

Frequently asked questions about the campaign

• How can I help support the campaign?
  • Explore the campaign on AreYouGoodWithThat.com
  • Share your thoughts using our social media toolkit
  • Join our movement and do your part to hold this #KillerBusiness accountable
• Is this campaign only for young people? No. After we saw in our testing how young people reacted positively to this campaign, we ran similar tests and found that it’s effective across the board.  No generation is good with the gun industry’s #KillerBusiness—and so we have an opportunity with this campaign to start conversations with people from all different walks of life. 
• How do you expect the gun industry to react to this? Oh, they’ll be very upset—and we’ll be sure to keep them in our thoughts and prayers. But seriously, if they don’t like what they’re seeing, they can do something about the tens of thousands of deaths and injuries their products cause each year. Unfortunately, the more likely response is that they continue to spread fear and conspiracy theories about anyone trying to solve the problem of gun violence in America (all of us).  
• How about the NRA? For young people in America, the NRA is about as relevant as a rotary telephone. For years, the NRA has acted as a shield for the gun industry, distracting the public from the gun industry’s relentless pursuit of profits. With the NRA weaker than ever, our campaign is meant to expose the industry behind the shield.  
• Why does the campaign use humor? Guns are the number one killer of kids, teens, and young adults in America and that is no laughing matter. But for the “lockdown generation,” no one needs to tell us that gun violence is a serious issue. In our discussions with members of Gen Z and our broader survey research, we found that using dark humor helped engage and educate young people about the gun industry in a way that was new, different, and worth paying attention to. Are You Good With That? adopts a very different style and tone, but given declining trust in institutions and authorities, we believe that a campaign dedicated to uncovering the industry’s efforts to profit from rising death rates will drive more online engagement which, in turn, will shine a brighter light on the industry. Our hope is that our Are You Good With That? campaign videos can avoid stuffy lectures, cut through the noise on social media, and bring more people into the conversation—because as it turns out, most young people are not good with the gun industry’s indifference to our country’s gun violence epidemic.