A new image of firearms is taking hold among younger Americans.
For cities to thrive, families and kids need to feel safe. Today, in too many American cities with high rates of gun violence, young people don’t feel safe, and some are choosing to possess and carry guns as a way to protect themselves. But the evidence is clear: That choice puts them at greater risk and makes gun violence more likely, not less — a textbook example of a vicious cycle.
These findings about young people and their relationship to guns and gun violence come from a 2023 research report released by Project Unloaded, the nonprofit I founded to disrupt the cycle that leads so many young people to believe that a gun is the key to safety. We do that by leveraging the power of social media and the creativity of Gen Z to shift the narratives and norms driving gun use. Our work is a direct outgrowth of this research.
During the summer of 2023, our research partners from the firm Ahzul interviewed teens of color in Chicago, Philadelphia, Sacramento and other cities with high rates of gun violence, and surveyed 500 similar teens nationwide. We learned that many teens are spending nearly all of their time indoors because of the threat of gun violence. Fewer than 1 in 10 teens feel “very safe” spending time at a local park, and just one-third feel “very safe” in their schools or neighborhoods. More than half reported a personal experience with gun violence.
Despite the impact of gun violence, the teens in our survey hold some conflicting views about guns: Among teens who are undecided about having a gun in the future, two-thirds believe having a gun will make them safer. At the same time, most teens we surveyed said their neighborhoods would be safer if fewer people had guns, a belief that aligns with the scientific consensus that access to guns is a risk factor for homicide and suicide, though nearly 90% say they have done little to no research on the risks that come with having a gun.
In these complex and sometimes conflicting views, Project Unloaded sees opportunity. The majority of young people may believe a gun will keep them safe, but unlike their parents and grandparents, our research shows that they’re open to learning more and changing their minds.
We reach young people with facts about how guns make life riskier — including that homicides are twice as likely in homes with guns, and suicides are three times more likely for everyone in the home, and even higher for children and teens. Once teens learn the facts, they are more likely to believe that guns make people less safe, and they are less likely to say they would have a gun in the future. In our research, just 13% of the urban teens of color we surveyed (including Black, Hispanic and AAPI teens) said that guns made them less safe before being exposed to facts related to firearm risks. After reading those facts, 31% of respondents said guns would make them less safe. Youth-focused firearm risk education has the power to reduce interest in gun ownership and use and, as a result, can save lives.
Reducing gun violence depends upon future generations deciding, on their own terms, against owning and using guns.
With that goal in mind, Project Unloaded focuses on reaching 13- to 17-year-olds with information about gun risks through platforms like Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube. We run peer-to-peer campaigns that can efficiently and frequently reach millions of teens online with the facts on why they’re safer without guns. While gun violence is sometimes treated by adults as a political football, our teen-facing campaigns are strictly nonpartisan and apolitical. According to 2019 research from SocialSphere and Cause and Social Influence, young people’s awareness of the social movements related to guns is low and many are turned off by the polarized nature of the discourse around guns.
With those findings in mind, we give teens the facts on gun risks and ask them to make decisions about guns with those facts in mind. We don’t tell them what to do; rather, we empower them to make fact-based decisions on their own terms.
We tailor our campaigns to the audience we want to engage. Using the findings in our 2023 research, we built a campaign designed to engage Black and Latino teens in communities deeply harmed by gun violence. The campaign, Guns Change the Story, uses videos featuring Chicago teens and MadLibs-style storytelling to challenge teens to consider how guns add risk to everyday situations.
Our campaigns consistently see a strong response from our teen audience. In 2024, Guns Change the Story reached 1.3 million teens in five cities in neighborhoods with elevated gun violence rates. Ads were watched to completion over 345,000 times, indicating strong engagement with the message. Nearly 100,000 teens clicked through to the website to learn more.
This year we launched a campaign, Leave Guns in the Game, geared at teen gamers that earned engagement six times above industry norms. Our research showed that many teen boys learn about guns through gaming, making this an important entryway into a conversation about the risks that come with having guns in real life.
Similarly, knowing that mental health is top of mind for young people, we’ve also launched a campaign that joins an existing Gen Z-led conversation with a message about gun risks. The campaign, called Working On It, amplifies the voices and words of Gen Z content creators and everyday teens sharing a simple message: We’re all working on our mental health. And while we’re Working On It, we’re safer without guns around.
The secret to our success comes from the teens and young adults who fuel our peer-to-peer campaigns. Our Youth Council is made up of high-school- and college-age young people who write and film content and weigh in on every campaign we release to help shift gun culture.
Teens in our community partner program learn social media marketing skills alongside firearm risk education. They create their own campaigns and contribute to our existing ones. Teens know what will work with other teens better than adults ever will. Young people tell us in exit surveys that they’re leaving our program with a deeper understanding of the risks that come with using guns as well as feeling more comfortable and prepared to talk to their peers about the risks of owning and using guns.
Reducing gun use leads to reducing gun violence. Put differently, reducing gun violence depends upon future generations deciding, on their own terms, against owning and using guns. It may sound outlandish, but it’s not: Youth-focused culture change is a proven public health solution.
In the early 2000s, nearly a quarter of teens smoked cigarettes. Thanks to decades of messaging and marketing from Big Tobacco, misinformation was rampant. But this proved to be a fixable problem: The Truth Initiative and other organizations worked to reach teens with the facts on smoking cigarettes, to catch people before they get hooked. As a result of these efforts, teens effectively turned smoking cigarettes from cool to uncool in a single generation. Today, less than 3% of U.S. teens smoke cigarettes.
Just like tobacco two decades ago, myths about guns are rampant today — and those myths are driving more young people to want to own guns.
Project Unloaded is applying a similar strategy to reducing gun violence among young people in the United States, for whom firearm injuries are the leading cause of death for ages 1 to 17.
Just like tobacco two decades ago, myths about guns are rampant today — and those myths are driving more young people to want to own guns. On average, men who choose to get a gun acquire their first one at 19. That’s why reaching young people while they’re still in their teen years — before they’ve made up their minds about guns — is essential.
Thanks to the power of social media, reaching young people is easier than it’s ever been. Most young people have a smartphone and consume social media content every day. The evidence that extensive social media consumption can harm teens’ mental health is well known, but social media can also be used as a tool for good, amplifying the voices of young people who are fed up with how gun violence is affecting their generation and hungry to mobilize their peers for change. Through our social media campaigns and content, we’re empowering teenage participants in our community partner program as well as young people in our youth leadership program to make their voices heard to millions of their peers.
In addition to our youth-led campaigns, we also partner with Gen Z influencers who typically produce lifestyle, comedy or college-life content. We’re intentional about reaching teens through content creators they already trust, in nonactivist spaces. We want to give young people unbiased facts and empower them to choose on their own terms. Connecting with teenagers before they’ve solidified opinions on gun ownership allows us to enter the conversation in a critical window of their development and make sure they know the facts before making a high-risk decision about gun use.
And throughout our cultural campaigns, content creator engagements and community partnerships, we pay close attention to the data. We survey, optimize based on what’s working and have landed on an effective approach. Every time Project Unloaded has tested our campaigns and partnerships, we’ve seen teens shift 15 to 20 points away from interest in gun use.
By engaging young people before their opinions on guns are fully formed, we hope to inspire the next generation to make their communities safer. We believe the narrative of guns in America can be rewritten, with young people as the central figures driving change.