GVPedia’s Devin Hughes: Countering the Gun Lobby’s “Firehose of Falsehood”

Safety in Numbers

Welcome to Everytown Research’s Safety in Numbers blog, where we invite leading experts in the growing field of gun violence prevention to present their innovative research in clear, user-friendly language. Our goal is to share the latest developments, answer important questions, and stimulate evidence-based conversations on a broad range of gun safety topics in a form that allows all of us to participate. If you have a topic you want to hear more about, please feel free to suggest it at: [email protected].

Sarah Burd-Sharps, Senior Director of Research

Note: The views, opinions, and content expressed in this product do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or policies of Everytown.

Can you tell us about GVPedia’s Facts About Firearms Policy Initiative?

We distill and disseminate accurate research to counter disinformation and educate the public. We created the Facts About Firearms Policy Initiative in 2021 to make it easier for the public to access one-pagers and talking points countering common myths and disinformation about gun violence. The database includes information about more than 40 common myths about gun violence and how best to refute them. Each of these papers is cataloged so that users can quickly search for the myth on which they are seeking information.  The initiative serves as a tool to help advocates who are fighting for life-saving policy debunk the myths that have persevered for too long. Good public policy can only be made using good research and data. It is our mission to arm readers with the facts so that we can end the gun violence epidemic plaguing our country.

Why is it important to counter disinformation about gun violence?

Over the past five decades, the gun lobby has used a strategy called a Firehose of Falsehood that relies on disinformation and confusion to convince Americans that guns make us safer—and it has proven remarkably successful. This campaign deliberately blocks legitimate research about firearms while touting a handful of unethical “researchers” who have been broadly discredited by the academic community. The success of the campaign in promoting the myths about gun violence has resulted in disinformation becoming a major root cause of gun violence.

We often talk about treating the root causes of gun violence and examining the structural reasons behind why someone picks up a firearm and pulls the trigger. Root causes include poverty, underperforming schools, and easy access to firearms by high-risk people.

It’s time to add disinformation to the list.

The past three years have broken gun sale records and the majority of Americans say the primary driver for their purchase of a firearm is to keep them and their families safe. The gun lobby has long touted this as an important reason for owning a gun. According to a 2021 Gallup Poll, 88 percent of gun owners list self-defense as a primary reason for ownership. And previous polls show that more than 60 percent of Americans, including both gun owners and non-owners, believe that a firearm in the home makes them safer, with 56 percent believing more people carrying concealed firearms would make society safer. However, the data tells a different story. 

This surge in buying firearms for self-defense has corresponded with a surge in gun violence. Since the Gun Violence Archive began tracking gun violence in 2014, mass shootings in which four or more people are shot have increased by 137 percent. Deaths and injuries of children and teenagers aged 0-17 (not including suicides) have increased by 115 percent. CDC data from 2014-2021 that include suicides reveals that gun deaths have increased by 45 percent from 33,594 in 2014 to 48,830 in 2021. Tens of thousands more people are injured by guns each year, and guns are used to threaten and abuse hundreds of thousands more. Further, more than 200,000 guns are reported stolen every year by individual gun owners. These are guns that all too often find their way to crime scenes.

In addition to the raw data, the overwhelming majority of legitimate academic research debunks the myth that guns make us safer. A firearm in the home doubles the risk of homicide and triples the risk of suicide for everyone in the home. These risks do not end at the door, either. In 2005, the National Research Council released a report rejecting the claims of gun rights advocates that more guns equals less crime. In fact, the majority of academic research has found that weakening concealed carry laws increases violent crime. 

Despite what accurate research shows, we’ve seen a wave of states weaken laws governing concealed carry and now a majority of states have adopted Permitless Carry. John Lott and the gun lobby have been quite successful in using his work to convince legislatures that weakening concealed carry laws will either be harmless or beneficial, and we need to do a better job countering that disinformation with the truth: more guns do not make us safer.

How can we counter disinformation about gun violence?

Organizations can use the following strategies at a strategic level to overcome a Firehose of Falsehood:

1. Match the breadth and scope of the disinformation campaign with their own Firehose of Truth. 
2. Deploy inoculation campaigns to counter disinformation, involving informational “vaccines” that expose people to a piece of disinformation in a controlled setting and then thoroughly explain why it is inaccurate. 
3. Enact “deep canvassing” tactics that rely on canvassers listening attentively and encouraging empathy instead of traditional canvassing techniques. 
4. Focus on the populations most at risk of being swayed by the ongoing disinformation campaign rather than directly challenging the Firehose of Falsehood. 
5. Avoid attempting to overtly silence the opposition, as such efforts will most likely prove ineffective, and may actually substantially strengthen the disinformation campaign.

At the personal level, individuals can employ the following 4 step process for persuasion:

1. Circumventing entrenched barriers of opinion by meeting people where they are, establishing emotional credibility through personal narratives, and building trust.
2. Exploring the other person’s beliefs and core values by respectfully questioning, listening, and affirming.
3. Building a fact-based foundation that aligns with the other person’s values and using inoculation techniques to protect against future disinformation.
4. Motivating the person to action with a single emotionally powerful story and having them commit to at least a small action that can be built on over time. 

How would you recommend people try to spot misinformation? Are there any telltale signs that a falsehood about gun policy (or any policy) is being spread?

The Firehose of Falsehood’s success largely stems from the inherent advantages of disinformation over factual information:

• Disinformation is often surprising and memorable
• Disinformation typically has more emotional appeal
• Disinformation is more likely to be promulgated than fact on social media
• People typically care more about signaling loyalty to their political tribe than being factually accurate
• People are bad at distinguishing between fact and fiction
• Disinformation can be tailored to perfectly fit an existing narrative, therefore feeling more “true” than truth
• Disinformation is easier and faster to produce

These psychological facts often make spotting and countering disinformation challenging. However, there are a few rules of thumb that can help:

1. What’s the source of the information? This means tracing the talking point back to its origin, not just who said it last. If the source is from a peer-reviewed journal, or hard data from the CDC or Gun Violence Archive for example, the information is going to be more trustworthy. If the underlying source is an advocacy organization, it should be treated more skeptically. If the underlying source is an unethical or unreliable researcher, the overwhelming likelihood is that the information is false.
2. How many studies or reliable sources point to a conclusion? If it is only one study or source, even with a good reputation, be careful. Science is all about replication. A dozen studies all pointing to the same conclusion is a lot more powerful than just one or two.
3. Is the information too good/bad to be true? Reality tends to be messy, whereas disinformation paints an alluring tale. If a number sounds implausible, there’s a decent chance that it is. If there is a logical causal pathway that explains a result, that greatly strengthens the likelihood that said result is accurate. 

What impact do you hope your work has? Any forthcoming areas of study you’re looking to pursue?

I hope my work highlights two important themes:

1. Countering disinformation and the gun lobby’s Firehose of Falsehood is essential to reducing gun violence. Ideas are powerful, and unfortunately, the idea that “guns make you safer” has proven especially intractable, despite the overwhelming evidence that it is a myth. 
2. Facts matter. They matter not just in terms of forming proper policy, but also when changing minds if they are deployed properly. Spreading accurate information is something everyone can do and is essential for progress.

I’m hoping to study the impact of different types of ammunition on lethality. In the past several decades, there has been an explosion of different types of bullets each promising to be more lethal than the last, ranging from more standard full metal jacket and hollow point rounds to hydra-shok, segmenting, fragmenting, fluted, and other types of bullets. Almost all the research currently out there focuses on policy around the firearms themselves, but not their projectiles. After my time at this year’s harrowing NRA Convention, it feels like an important area to investigate. Additionally, the GVPedia team and I plan on continuing to expand GVPedia’s current functions by adding more studies to our gun violence research database, writing reports summarizing academic research, improving our data visualization tool, continuing to release articles from across the gun violence prevention community on our Armed With Reason Substack, and much more.

About Devin Hughes

Devin Hughes is the founder and President of GVPedia, Inc, a gun violence nonprofit that bridges the gap between academics and advocates to bring research and best practices into policymaking. He is also the founder of Hughes Capital Management, a registered investment advisor. He has taught Advanced Topics in Investments at the University of Oklahoma, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude with dual majors in Finance and Risk Management. He attended OU as a National Merit Scholar. He has been published in The Hill, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, Politico, Slate, ThinkProgress, Vice, Vox, and The Washington Post. He is the 2008 Oklahoma State Chess Champion.