Targeted advertising: documenting the emergence of Gun Culture 2.0 in *Guns* magazine, 1955–2019

The paper investigates whether the core emphasis of U.S. gun culture has shifted from Gun Culture 1.0 (hunting and recreational shooting) to Gun Culture 2.0 (personal protection/self-defense and concealed carry), and whether this shift is reflected in gun magazine advertising over time. Contextually, while self-defense has a long historical presence in American gun culture, recent decades show pronounced increases in self-reported ownership for protection, parallel to widespread liberalization of concealed-carry laws. Concurrently, participation in hunting has declined. The study’s purpose is to replicate prior findings from The American Rifleman using Guns magazine—an independent, for-profit, general-interest firearm magazine—to test whether the observed cultural shift is robust beyond an NRA-affiliated publication. The hypothesis is that advertising content will document a long-term decline in Gun Culture 1.0 themes and a rise in Gun Culture 2.0 themes, culminating in a crossover where defensive themes predominate.

The study situates advertising as both a marketing practice and a cultural discourse connecting producers and consumers (Griswold; Peterson). Classic critiques (Horkheimer and Adorno; Packard) view advertising as manipulative, while Schudson contends advertising more often reflects and organizes existing values rather than directly determining consumer behavior. Media reception is non-mechanical (Hall; Press), implying ads can be read to trace changing meanings and practices over time. Against this backdrop, the authors adopt the same cultural approach as Yamane et al. (2019), reading gun ads as indicators of shifts within gun culture. Prior scholarship on gun culture’s evolution, ownership motives, and legal changes (e.g., Pew; Azrael et al.; legal liberalization literature) frames the expectation of a move toward self-defense and concealed carry. The review also notes prior concerns that NRA magazine content might be biased, motivating replication in a non-NRA, for-profit venue.

Design: Replication of Yamane et al. (2019) using Guns magazine, a for-profit, general-interest firearm magazine published continuously since 1955. Sampling: One randomly selected monthly issue per year from 1955–2019 (12 months as frame; random month chosen per year). Issues obtained from the first author’s collection, FMG Publications, eBay, and FMG’s online archive. Inclusion criteria: ads ≥ quarter-page; placed by manufacturer/licensed dealer/importer; for firearms, ammunition (not components/reloading), accessories, or combinations thereof. Total ads meeting criteria: 1154. Ads lacking any of nine initial thematic codes were dropped, yielding 950 coded ads. Coding scheme: Initial nine themes (technical superiority, hunting, collecting, military, law enforcement, sport/recreation, tactical, personal protection/self-defense/home or family defense, concealed carry). Analytic focus on four: hunting; sport/recreation (Gun Culture 1.0); personal protection/self-defense/home or family defense; concealed carry (Gun Culture 2.0). Multiple themes could be coded per ad. Inter-coder reliability: Three coders coded presence/absence for attributes across four rounds, using Krippendorff’s alpha (α ≥ 0.80 as acceptable). Round 1: hunting 0.92; sport/recreation 0.52; personal protection 0.64; concealed carry 1.00. After refinements, Round 2: hunting 1.00; sport 0.69; personal protection 0.86; concealed carry 0.64. Round 3: hunting 0.90; sport 0.85; personal protection 0.79; concealed carry 1.00. Round 4: hunting 0.85; sport 0.84; personal protection 0.81; concealed carry 0.84. Following acceptable α in Round 4, trained researchers coded independently with spot checks. Normalization and analysis: Because ad volume varies by year, results were normalized by advertising space. Ad sizes recorded (two-page, full, half, third, quarter page). For each issue, total coded ad space computed (mean 9.98 pages; range 1.99–26.8). For each theme, presence was multiplied by ad size and summed, then divided by total coded ad space to yield the percentage of total advertising space reflecting that theme. Trends over 1955–2019 were examined for the four focal themes and for combined Gun Culture 1.0 vs 2.0 themes. Descriptive context: average number of qualifying ads per issue was 14.6 across years, rising to 26.8 during 2010–2014 and declining to 13.2 during 2015–2019.

• Gun Culture 1.0 themes (hunting; sport/recreation) were prevalent throughout but declined over time. Hunting increased through the 1960s before a long decline thereafter; sport/recreation remained relatively stable for much of the period but fell steadily in the last third. Combined, Gun Culture 1.0 themes comprised most ad space through the end of the 20th century but trended downward overall.
• Gun Culture 2.0 themes (personal protection/self-defense/home or family defense; concealed carry) were rare in the early decades but began rising in the 1980s, with growth aligning with the liberalization of concealed-carry laws (e.g., Florida’s 1987 shall-issue law). Concealed carry showed a slightly delayed onset but a steeper rise than general personal protection.
• Crossover: The combined Gun Culture 2.0 themes surpassed Gun Culture 1.0 themes between 2010 and 2011 in Guns magazine. From 2014 to 2019, Gun Culture 2.0 averaged 56.5% of annual coded advertising space (range 49.6%–68.7%), while Gun Culture 1.0 averaged 14.2% (range 0%–25%).
• Replication contrast: In The American Rifleman, the crossover occurred later (2014), with 45.3% Gun Culture 2.0 vs 15.9% Gun Culture 1.0 ad space that year, indicating similar but slightly lagged dynamics relative to Guns.
• Advertising volume context: Qualifying ads per issue and total coded ad pages peaked during 2010–2014, coinciding with elevated focus on defensive themes. Overall, the data document a decisive long-term shift in advertising content from hunting/recreational themes toward self-defense and concealed carry, consistent with broader indicators of changing ownership motives and legal environments.

The findings directly support the hypothesis that the center of gravity in U.S. gun culture has moved from hunting and sport shooting (Gun Culture 1.0) toward personal protection and concealed carry (Gun Culture 2.0), as reflected in advertising content over 1955–2019. The rise of defensive themes beginning in the 1980s aligns with the liberalization of right-to-carry laws and the growth of a market for products tailored to everyday carry and personal defense. Replicating the earlier American Rifleman study in a for-profit, general-interest magazine demonstrates that the shift is not an artifact of NRA publication choices or audience segmentation; similar trajectories appear in Guns, with an even earlier crossover. The divergence post-2010 underscores the consolidation of defensive gun culture as dominant. These results, coupled with survey evidence showing protection as the leading reason for ownership, underscore the cultural reorientation of U.S. gun culture toward armed citizenship and everyday carry. The advertising data function as a long-run cultural indicator, revealing both continuity (persistent, though diminished, presence of hunting/sport) and substantial change (the ascendancy of self-defense/CCW).

This replication confirms a major cultural transition in U.S. gun advertising: Gun Culture 1.0 themes predominated through the 1980s into the 1990s, after which Gun Culture 2.0 themes rose steadily, overtaking traditional themes in the early 2010s in Guns magazine. Together with survey and legal trends, the evidence indicates that Gun Culture 2.0—centered on personal protection and concealed carry—is the dominant and still expanding core of contemporary American gun culture. Future research directions include: disentangling causality between advertising and cultural change; studying audience reception/decoding (e.g., via photo elicitation); conducting qualitative analyses of imagery and narratives (including race, gender, class, and potential sacralization processes); and examining the social organization of armed citizenship and concealed carry. Greater attention to institutional influences (law, economy, technology) and to both the material “hardware” and cultural/skill “software” of Gun Culture 2.0 is encouraged.

• Causality: The study cannot determine whether advertising is primarily a mirror of cultural change or also a mold shaping it; likely reciprocal influences cannot be isolated over the long time frame.
• Reception: The analysis focuses on production/encoding; it does not examine how audiences interpret or are affected by the ads. Methods like photo elicitation interviews are suggested to capture consumer meanings and emotions.
• Depth of thematic analysis: The quantitative trend approach does not capture nuanced qualitative shifts (e.g., sacralization, race/gender/class dynamics in imagery). Richer qualitative analyses are needed to complement the trends.
• Scope of data: While longitudinal and systematic, the dataset is limited to one issue per year and to ads meeting inclusion criteria, which may not capture all seasonal or submarket variations.