How about taking a page from the anti-tobacco movement? Ban product placement of guns in movies, television and video games. Ban gun companies from sponsoring events like music concerts.
This is actually a great idea.
Do they do that now?
I can’t seem to find any examples in a short search.
Movies no, Streaming no, Broadcast TV somewhat. I have no clue on Video games.
But any further on this belongs in a different thread before tobacco becomes a hijack.
I have no idea what you’re saying here. What do you mean by “movies no”?
Movies are not prohibited from showing cigarettes. Now, if you want to continue this, start a new thread.
And I spun off this bit into its own thread.
Sorry, I think you misunderstand or perhaps I was not clear. When I said banning product placement of guns in movies, I’m suggesting banning paid product placement by gun companies in movies.
Do we have examples of gun companies paying to promote either gun culture or even their particular product in film? Have any gun companies sponsored a concert?
I think the NRA sponsored a few things, but has, for example- Remington?
Has this occurred?
The NRA gets most of its money from the Gun companies, doesn’t it?
As it does sponsor concerts and Nascar as 2 easy examples, I would say that counts as Gun Companies doing so.
Are there any? Got any examples?
Bond movies get paid by luxury car companies and watch companies if Bond uses one of their products. Do they get paid by Carl Walther GmbH Sportwaffen?
See, for instance, this article from The Hollywood Reporter (though weirdly, I can’t tell when exactly the article was published). Here’s one example.
While getting a gun into a movie is relatively easy and often free, having it portrayed in the right way is a bigger ask. That’s where Rolfe Auerbach comes in. As a licensing consultant who works on product integration, Auerbach helps some of the country’s biggest gun manufacturers. In 2013, he negotiated a $250,000 deal with Beretta to have the firm’s 92FS pistol featured in Peter Berg’s Afghanistan war drama Lone Survivor, starring Wahlberg and Taylor Kitsch. “The movies provide a great opportunity to feature or highlight firearms with different groups of influencers like the military and law enforcement,” says Gary Ramey, the former Beretta exec who negotiated the deal — the largest gun product-placement deal on record — with Auerbach. “That’s where we focus our efforts.”
Yes, plenty. But I would go even further and ban namedropping real gun companies or models even without pay.
The irony here is that such a ban would prevent documentaries about Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Uvalde from mentioning the type of firearm the shooter used. Would it prevent broadcast news from reporting on the firearm used? Would you put a grandfather clause on this? If I were to write a scene set in 19th century America featuring someone talking about the Winchester repeating rifles would that be permitted or would I have to make up a fictional name?
This ban would be a violation of the 1st Amendment. You’re not banning commercial speech, you’re banning political speech.
My understanding was that the vast majority of the NRA’s funds come from memberships and individual donors. If you can find some hard numbers one way or the other let us know.
Offhand I can’t think of any movie or television show that prominently identified a firearm as e.g. a Smith & Wesson. Let alone that a gun manufacturer actually paid them to do so. And the NRA is hardly a commercial firearms manufacturer; they should properly be compared to The Tobacco Institute - Wikipedia rather than a cigarette company.
If we’re going to pass such legislation, a lot of details will need to be worked out. Will “promotion” of guns mean only gun companies paying for specific products to be displayed and commented on, or will it apply to images of guns the public might recognize, or for guns/gun types in general? Can guns be featured, but only if they’re presented in a negative light?
Will the law apply only to future depictions, or will past movies/TV shows/video games have to be altered to comply with the law? If that’s the case, one can foresee major edits to the John Wick movies.
Are all copies of the films with paid tobacco placement altered?
Regardless of whether the brand names of guns are used, the guns are still all over the movies and shows. Their image is popularized, they develop a reputation as being desirable and emblematic of power. Just banning gun companies from using product placement in movies wouldn’t do anything to move the needle.
Do you think documentaries about school shootings are useless unless they also serve as an ad for the gun company responsible?
Of course not, what on Earth would lead you to think so?
A CNNMoney analysis of federal campaign finance records shows that much of this money comes from everyday Americans. And these contributions, which the NRA uses to keep pro-gun lawmakers in office, are on the rise.
Some political funding comes from big corporations, many within the gun industry, which donate millions to the NRA. But companies are barred from donating to the NRA’s political action committee, which the agency uses to fill campaign coffers, run ads and send out mailers for and against candidates…These 10 donors all gave more than the former CEO of the oldest family-owned gunmaker in the country. Alan Mossberg, the now-retired CEO of O.F. Mossberg & Sons, donated $12,000 during this same time period. The company claims to be the largest manufacturer of pump-action shotguns in the world.
So, some but by no means most.
So far, although we have seen a company or two that paid to have it’s firearm featured in a War film (which of course, will pretty much have to show quite a few guns), do we have any examples of a company that actually paid to “promote gun culture”?