Project Unloaded, Just Another Group of Gun Grabbers

A new gun control group has come into the fray, Project Unloaded, and this group is hell-bent on its mission to “create a new cultural narrative that guns make us less safe.”

Gun Grabbers have spent years trying to legislate away your right to own a gun, now it appears they are taking up a new strategy of cultural influence. Project Unloaded is aiming to establish “safe spaces” for open conversations about firearms and firearm safety so that the next generation won’t buy guns, “on their own terms” of course. This certainly won’t end up as an organization that willfully spreads disinformation to stigmatize firearm ownership and firearms in general right? Right? 

The group’s message essentially boils down to convincing kids and teens that guns are unsafe and that they should never get one. The group wants teens to choose to be “unloaded” in their future, meaning that they will never own a gun. The group wants to accomplish this by getting to teens first and convincing them that firearms are dangerous and that they can only bring danger to the table.  

The first campaign that the group is diving into is called SNUG –  Safer Not Using Guns. Yes, that is guns spelled backward and this is very reminiscent of the D.A.R.E. campaigns, but more on that later.  

The SNUG campaign is clear-cut propaganda that will backfire on Project Unloaded, just like D.A.R.E. campaigns did in their hay day. The messaging is insanely out of touch and already dated as of this article. There is a “Get the Facts” page on their site that has 4 simple facts for young teens to read so they are “educated” about firearm safety. 

“Str8 up a gun @ home = ur 3x ↑ likley 2 B killed” 

“NGL ur fam’s risk of suicide is 3x ↑ likely w/ a gun @ home”

“Kids w/ guns @ home R 4x ↑ likely to kill themselves” 

“NO CAP an abusive BF/GF w/ a gun = ur 5X ↑ likely 2 B killed.”

No teenager writes like this, this is a Bizzaro-world combination of slang from several generations that was clearly glued together by someone who is out of touch with not only the youth but the English language. This campaign will surely be subject to ridicule from youths and conservatives alike. 

Even the social media influencers who were picked for this project seem like they don’t want to be there, the short TikTok videos the campaign shared weren’t even hosted on TikTok, they were hosted on Vimeo. 

The campaign is plagued with caveats about the choice being yours to make, sayings like “No Pressure”, “Being SNUG is a Personal Choice”, and “You Don’t Have to Pick a Side” litter the website. With these caveats is the constant insinuation that having a gun in the house is very dangerous and every piece of skewed data and every misleading statistic on the site is aimed at conveying that message. 

This initial campaign from Project Unloaded is just like the D.A.R.E. campaigns from the 90s and just like those campaigns, this will likely hurt their cause more than help it. This campaign comes off as dated and washed to us, if that’s the case it will certainly be dated and washed for the teens that this campaign is meant for. “Hip” marketing campaigns about heated cultural topics never seem to work out, D.A.R.E. did nothing to stop people from using drugs and many have mocked the group as having actually worsened the problem, although there isn’t any hardcore data to support those claims. Anecdotally though, many have stated that they first heard about drugs and where to get them as a result of the campaign. 

Enough about SNUG though, who is responsible for Project Unloaded?

The founder and executive director of Project Unloaded is Nina Vinik who has done a lot of work in the advocacy group space. Vinik’s resume includes a variety of fair house groups, litigation assistance projects, and the ACLU. It should go without saying that Vinik is someone who leans left. 

If we take a gander at who is on the advisory board we see several individuals from other groups that are a bit more interesting. David Brotherton of The Kendeda Fund, Deborah Gillespie of the DGCB Group, and Shira Goodman of the Anti-Defamation League. 

The group also has a steering committee that includes Marice Eberhard from the American Eagle Outfitters Foundation, Tim Daly of The Joyce Foundation, and Renee Hopkins from the Alliance for Gun Responsibility. 

This is all your typical conglomerate of corporate advocacy groups that slap their label on a cause to keep customers coming in and major left-wing groups that are always looking to support the Democrat agenda regardless of the issue. No real surprises in this lot. 

If there is any takeaway from the formation of this group and their first campaign it is that we are winning. The legislative front in the battle for our 2A rights has been going smoothly albeit a little bumpy at times at the state and local level, which is all you can really ask for with opposition controlling Congress and the White House. The cultural front on the other hand has been nothing but slam dunks and home runs across the board. 

People in general, not just youths, are really waking up to this idea that not only should we be allowed to own guns but we should own guns. In the facts section of the Project Unloaded website they point out that 75% of young people believe having a gun in the home makes them safer, of course, see this statistic as a nightmare but that’s not how we see it. 

To be clear, owning a gun outright will not make you safer, knowing how to use a gun and how to handle a gun properly in a safe manner will make you safer. There are countless stories of people who are only alive today because they had a gun and were able to defend themselves against a home invader or a carjacker. These stories don’t matter to gun grabbers and this is something that is hard to convey to middle America as prevented deaths are not a statistic that is easily obtainable. 

The fact that this group was created to challenge the popular narrative with teens and young adults means that 2A is the popular narrative. Conservative voices and opinions often dominate the internet, social media, and memes because somehow we have reached a point where conservatives are the ones challenging the status quo. These are interesting times to say the least.