How the Firearms Industry Markets Guns to Asian Americans

Chris Cheng: “Diversity is the next area of success for our industry”

The birthplace of the long-term, organized, and coordinated campaign targeting non-white potential gun owners was the 2015 Industry Summit held by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the trade association for the firearms industry, in Savannah, Georgia.⁹ As a press release issued by NSSF after the event explained:

“The central theme of the 2015 Industry Summit, diversity, is one that proved the industry is preparing to significantly change the way it does business. ‘We’ve talked loosely about diversity for years,’ said Chris Dolnack, NSSF Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, ‘but there’s never been a cohesive effort across the industry as a whole to address this subject and innovate change. This year’s Industry Summit showed us that we’re about to experience a ground-swell shift in that attitude. Summit attendees came fully prepared, arriving with focused, on-point questions about what changes they need to make in their businesses to embrace a new consumer audience.’”¹⁰

As illustrated by presentation slides shared on Twitter by Summit attendees, speakers offered overviews of the potential shooters they were targeting, breaking racial and ethnic groups (Black, Latino, and Asian) down by “demographics,” “psychographics,” and “technographics.” The demographics for “Asian Shooters” included: “Younger, higher income and education; Conservative and family oriented in a traditional way; Skew more English dominant than overall Asian population.” Psychographics were listed as: “See themselves as more creative and spiritual; Independent minded and passionate, more demanding of self; Driven and ambitious but not just by money; Practical, curious, don’t let the small things cloud life; Tend to be more self-oriented versus socially outgoing.” Technographics were listed as: “High involvement in social media, high daily usage rate; Confident posting, sharing, interacting on social media; Introverted offline BUT expressive social media presence; Highest incidence of video gaming.”

Among the speakers at the meeting was Chris Cheng, a one-time Google employee whose notoriety stemmed from his having won the History Channel’s “Top Shot” shooting competition without any formal training or having garnered a prior shooting award. Cheng has advocated on behalf of NSSF, with one NSSF article’s author describing him as “one of the more unlikely people I can think of to become a top shooter. He not only breaks many shooting sports molds, but rumor has it he even has the mold-makers on the run. Cheng is a techno-nerd, an Asian-American and openly gay — three things the stereotype monitors tell us you’re not supposed to find in the shooting sports.”¹¹ Cheng has also served on NSSF’s Inclusion and Outreach Working Group.¹²

Cheng’s presentation was titled “Diversity: The Next Big Opportunity,” with the hoped-for result being “new shooters, and new gun owners, and new Second Amendment advocates….” As Cheng addressed his audience, he asked:

“Now, what is diversity and why is it important…For the context of today’s talk, we’re talking about ethnicities like we’ve been talking about for most of the day. Hispanics, Asians, whites, Blacks. Now, this is important because in the context of America, we are a country of immigrants… [W]e then have to understand that a lot of immigrant families do not have traditions of firearms ownership, of hunting, of sports shooting. And therein lies the opportunity for us to promote the Second Amendment, to promote hunting and sports shooting to this new demographic and make them a multigenerational customer and a lifelong Second Amendment advocate.“

Cheng concluded with a “call to action” including: “more targeted messaging towards ethnic groups…, sponsoring or attending diversity events such as the NSSF First Shots Program…, [a]nd then finally highlight people of color in firearm ads, media articles and other marketing collateral.” Cheng promised, “Diversity is the next area of success for our industry.”¹³

Following the Summit, NSSF Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Chris Dolnack discussed the trade association’s marketing efforts:

“[O]ver the years many of us have discussed how to expand shooting participation numbers beyond the traditional predominance of Caucasian males. We’ve made tremendous strides in welcoming women into the sport in the past couple decades, but we haven’t been as successful when it comes to ethnic diversity.¹⁴ And the thing is, there are legions of African-American, Hispanic and Asian recreational and competitive shooters out there, as well as hunters, but they aren’t part of the greater family of gun enthusiasts most are familiar with. We need to change that, need to create the avenues that will welcome these shooters into the fold, and that’s what this year’s Summit focused on.”¹⁵

Or as NSSF president and CEO Steve Sanetti summarized, “What a difference this is from just a few years ago when the industry was lamenting that it was becoming stale, male and pale.”¹⁶

Exploiting COVID Violence Against Asian Americans

Since the “ground-swell shift” felt at its 2015 Atlanta meeting, NSSF, its gun industry members, and the National Rifle Association have focused primarily on Blacks and Latinos in their marketing efforts.¹⁷

In addition to advertising and articles featuring non-white models and their own promotional activities, a parallel track has been to promote pro-gun organizations and “personalities” from the ethnic or racial communities being targeted, many of whom have benefited financially from their relationships with gunmakers or the NRA.

For example, until its collapse in 2019, Black pro-gun YouTube personality Colion Noir was a staple of the NRA’s online “news” channel NRATV, with his own show supported by gun industry sponsors. Noir currently promotes pistols in ads for gunmaker Sturm, Ruger. Joining Noir as an NRATV commenter was Gabby Franco, a Latina and the first female shooter to represent Venezuela in the Olympics as well as a contestant, like Cheng, on the History Channel show “Top Shot.” Franco’s gun industry links have included a “marketing alliance and sponsorship” agreement with Remington Outdoors Company and serving as a “brand ambassador” for Walther Arms. Like Cheng, Franco has been a member of NSSF’s Inclusion and Outreach Working Group. Maj Toure, founder of Black Guns Matter, in addition to promoting Bersa handguns and partnering with another manufacturer to sell a branded assault rifle to financially benefit his organization, was promoted by the NRA and offered his endorsement of the group (he later publicly turned against them and now is associated most frequently with NSSF). In 2016 an NRA blog highlighted the one-year anniversary of the National African American Gun Association (NAAGA) with an interview with its founder.

Acting as ‘ambassadors’ to the non-gun owning members of their respective communities, a common thread that runs through the rhetoric of many of these pro-gun spokespeople is to cite legitimate incidents of past oppression or extreme violence against their race or ethnicity and then use this shameful history as a rationale for personal self-defense gun ownership in the present day.

As noted, the bulk of marketing efforts targeting minority communities have focused on Black and Latino Americans. But now, faced with the opportunity to exploit current fears among the AAPI community, the firearms industry has moved swiftly to make up for lost time.

As a March 2021 Forbes article titled “More Asian-Americans Are Buying Guns For Protection From Hate Crimes” matter-of-factly explained, “Gun makers like Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger want to expand their customer demographics to include more minorities. Asians have been historically underrepresented among gun owners. The NSSF said that in early 2020 only 3.1 percent of gun buyers were Asian males and 0.7 percent were Asian females, even though they represent 6 percent of the U.S. population. This is compared to white males, who accounted for 55.8 percent of gun buyers, and 16.6 percent were white females.” The article quoted NSSF Director of Public Affairs Mark Oliva, who stated, “Every law-abiding American has the right, at their birth, to keep and bear arms…The concerns of personal safety of Asian-Americans are no less legitimate than that of any other demographic group in America.”¹⁸

The well-established pro-gun process of promoting a high-profile ‘ambassador’ and relevant organization to aid industry marketing efforts is now being repeated with Chris Cheng and the organization AAPIGO (Asian American and Pacific Islander Gun Owners). Following his own recommendations in his “calls to action” back in 2015 to use “more targeted messaging towards ethnic groups” and “highlight people of color in firearm ads, media articles, marketing,” Cheng has quickly become the pro-gun face of Asian American recruitment efforts.

On his Facebook page in Spring 2021 Cheng announced AAPIGO, “the first ever AAPI gun owners group. Everyone, including non-Asians, is welcome to join and support our education and outreach efforts…I’m advising AAPIGO and providing my full support and resources to help it succeed.”

Launched in April 2021, AAPIGO was founded by Patrick Lopez and Scott Kane after meeting online on Reddit.¹⁹ According to an article on the blog site The Reload, “The two men had been looking for ways to encourage the influx of new Asian-American gun owners to get training and learn about their Second Amendment rights.”²⁰ The article noted that Lopez is Asian American and that Kane’s wife and daughter are of Chinese descent²¹ In the article, Cheng bluntly describes the role he hoped the group would play: “Chris Cheng…told The Reload an Asian group would fill a hole in current efforts by the gun-rights movement and the firearms industry to reach new demographics. He said many Asians come from countries where guns are negatively stigmatized as being tools of oppressive military and police regimes. That, combined with language and cultural barriers, can make it especially hard to get Asian Americans interested in gun ownership, according to Cheng. But not impossible. ‘If we look at the success of outreach programs for women, we have a template and a blueprint for how this can be successful,’ he said. ‘Now, the challenge is taking that and applying it to Asian Americans.’”²²

Yet by May 2021, AAPIGO was engaged in an internecine battle after co-founder Scott Kane told CNN that he supported expanded background checks for gun sales and that he had voted for Joe Biden for president.²³ Soon after these and other “morally reprehensible” actions,²⁴ visitors to the AAPIGO website were greeted with the banner headline “AAPIGO.org is moving to APAGOA.ORG,” where the “leadership team,” minus Kane, appeared to be reassembling under the new moniker of the Asian Pacific American Gun Owners Association (APAGOA).²⁵ Cheng remained an advisor to the renamed group.²⁶

In an online interview with former NRATV commenter Colion Noir, Cheng, explained the “very logical conclusion” as to why more Asian Americans should be buying guns:

“Specifically with Asians, COVID has been a flash point with this increase in violence against Asian Americans. Now you couple that with defund the police. If you hear defund the police, you see all these riots and civil unrest that has taken over our country over the past year. The conclusion for many Asians has been, oh crap. If the police can’t be there for me….If 911 literally just doesn’t work when I need help, then who out there is going to defend me? Obviously you and I know that the answer is every person needs to be their first line of defense. There’s where buying a gun is a very logical conclusion for Asian-Americans.“

Later, Cheng acknowledged his own role in “putting guns in the hands of good people,” stating: “I want to encourage Asian Americans to think about the Second Amendment, to think about these personal civil liberties that we have in our country. Like it or not, it often takes somebody who either looks like you, sounds like you, and in this case, I’m Asian and whether you like it or not, the messenger matters. I think Asians hearing this message, that gun ownership can be good…It’s about putting guns in the hands of good people.”²⁷

A Marketing Means to a Political End

As noted in the beginning of this report, the hoped-for goals of the firearms industry and gun lobby are not only financial, but also political. In a July 2020 article published on its website, NSSF chief Larry Keane tied the organization’s marketing activities to its battle against gun violence prevention efforts, promising that “increasingly more voices of a diverse American gun owner are responding. The impacts will be significant on the future of Second Amendment rights in America.”²⁸

These assertions were echoed by the NRA in October 2020 in an article titled “New Gun Owners and the Election” that appeared in the organization’s America’s 1st Freedom magazine. Promising that “no, not of all them look the same” and that it was no longer the case that “gun ownership is merely the preserve of white men,” the article argued that “many of those new gun owners have a practical stake in the preservation of the Second Amendment, and in the prevention of draconian gun-control laws that attempt to criminalize their peaceful behavior and make scapegoats of the peaceful. Perhaps in the coming election, but certainly soon after, these alterations will yield a change in our political debate.”²⁹

The Real-World Lethal Impact of Guns on the AAPI Community

Not surprisingly, the firearms industry and its financial partners in the National Rifle Association never acknowledge the harm guns inflict on our nation, and on communities of color in particular. In 2019 alone, nearly 40,000 lives were lost in gun homicides, suicides, fatal unintentional shootings, and other firearm deaths.

There are two major sources of national lethal victimization information — public health and criminal justice records:

• The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services maintains national public health data as recorded by death certificates and compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The CDC collects mortality data that includes homicides, suicides, and unintentional deaths. While the CDC data is the most comprehensive available to measure total fatal victimization in each category as well as age and race, it lacks the additional information categories contained in the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Report for homicides.

• The U.S. Department of Justice is the repository of national criminal justice records. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) compiles data on reported crime, including homicide, through its Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and its Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR), which is a subset of the UCR. Homicide-related information that is unique to the SHR includes: the age of both the victim and offender; the circumstances surrounding the homicide; the relationship of the victim to the offender; and, more detailed information on the type of weapon used, including whether a gun used was a handgun, rifle, or shotgun.
  
  While the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Report offers the most information available on homicide at the national level, the data is less complete than public health data from the CDC.

Recognizing the strengths and limitations of each of these two separate data sets, this study will utilize 2019 CDC data (the most recent available at time of writing) for information on Asian/Pacific Islander homicide, suicide, and overall gun death; leading causes of death; and, the use of firearms in homicide and suicide. It will utilize 2019 FBI data (the most recent available at time of writing) for information on Asian/Pacific Islander homicide victimization not contained in the CDC data.

Public Health Data. Using this data for Asian/Pacific Islanders we will: rank the leading causes of death, including homicide and suicide; detail the number of homicides and suicides, sex, and the victimization rates; and, present historical data on Asian/Pacific Islander homicide, suicide, and overall gun death.

Criminal Justice Data. Using this information, we will detail for Asian/Pacific Islanders: the types of firearms used in homicide; the relationship of homicide victims to their offenders; and, the circumstances of the homicides.

Public Health Data

In 2019, the most recent year for which complete data is available, 679 Asian/Pacific Islanders were killed by firearms in the United States. Between 1999 and 2019, more than 10,000 Asian/Pacific Islanders were killed by guns.

Asian/Pacific Islander Firearm Deaths in the United States, 1999 to 2019

Criminal Justice Data

As noted earlier, while data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers the most comprehensive tally of Asian/Pacific Islander lethal victimization, it offers very limited data on the type of firearms used in homicides and no information on the factors surrounding the homicide (e.g., victim to offender relationship, circumstances). The FBI’s annual Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) does report such information, albeit on a smaller number of incidents.

In 2019, the Supplementary Homicide Report contained data for 250 Asian/Pacific Islander homicide victims. This section details data unique to the SHR data set for these deaths.

Types of Firearms Used in Homicides
In 2019, where the type of weapon used in the homicide could be determined, for Asian/Pacific Islander victims, 56 percent of all gun homicides involved a handgun. In comparison, handguns were used in 63 percent of Black homicides involving a gun and 64 percent of white homicides involving a gun. Overall, handguns were the most prevalent firearm used in homicides in 2019 (63 percent).

Relationship of Homicide Victims to Offenders
For homicides in which the victim to offender relationship could be identified, Asian/Pacific Islander victims were more likely to be killed by a stranger (30 percent). In comparison, 23 percent of Black victims were killed by a stranger and 24 percent of white victims were killed by a stranger. Overall, 24 percent of homicide victims were killed by a stranger.

Of victims who knew their offenders, 37 percent of Asian/Pacific Islander victims were intimate acquaintances of the offender. In comparison, 25 percent of white victims and 17 percent of Black victims were intimate acquaintances of the offender. For the overall population, 22 percent of homicide victims were intimate acquaintances of the offender.

Circumstances of Homicides
For all races, for homicides in which the circumstances could be determined, 71 percent were not related to the commission of another felony. For Asian/Pacific Islanders, 68 percent of the homicides were not related to the commission of another felony. Seventy-one percent of white homicides and 70 percent of Black homicides were not related to the commission of another felony.

For all races, of the homicides not related to the commission of another felony, 52 percent involved arguments between the victim and the offender. Fifty-four percent of Asian/Pacific Islanders killed in homicides not related to the commission of another felony were killed during arguments (compared to 56 percent of Black victims and 49 percent of white victims).

Age of Homicide Victims
For all victims, 29 percent of homicide victims were age 24 or younger. For Asian/Pacific Islander victims, 22 percent of homicide victims were age 24 and younger. In comparison, 34 percent of Black homicide victims were age 24 and younger and 24 percent of white victims were age 24 and younger.

Guns are Rarely Used by Asian Americans in Justifiable Homicides

Despite the firearms industry and gun lobby’s rhetoric and advertising, firearms are rarely used in justifiable homicides by private citizens. In 2019, across the U.S., Asian/Pacific Islanders committed two firearm justifiable homicides. For the five-year period 2015 to 2019, Asian/Pacific Islanders committed 37 firearm justifiable homicides. During this same five-year period, 3,076 Asian/Pacific Islanders lost their lives in firearm homicides, suicides, fatal unintentional shootings, and other firearm deaths: a ratio of 83 to one.

Race of Shooter and Person Killed in Justifiable Homicides by Firearm, 2015-12019

While it is clear that guns are rarely used to justifiably kill criminals, an obvious question remains: How often are guns used in self-defense whether or not a criminal is killed? The answer comes from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).³⁰

According to the NCVS, which has been ongoing since 1973, looking at the total number of self-protective behaviors undertaken by victims (of all races and ethnicities, Asian-specific data is not available) of both attempted and completed violent crime for the three-year period 2014 through 2016, in only 1.1 percent of these instances had the intended victim in resistance to a criminal “threatened or attacked with a firearm.”³¹For the three-year period 2014 through 2016, the NCVS estimates that there were 16,115,500 victims of attempted or completed violent crime. During this same three-year period, only 177,300 of the self-protective behaviors involved a firearm. Of this number, it is not known what type of firearm was used or whether it was fired or not. The number may also include off-duty law enforcement officers who use their firearms in self-defense.

According to the NCVS, looking at the total number of self-protective behaviors undertaken by victims of attempted or completed property crime for the three-year period 2014 through 2016, in only 0.3 percent of these instances had the intended victim in resistance to a criminal threatened or attacked with a firearm.³² For the three-year period 2014 through 2016, the NCVS estimates that there were 45,816,900 victims of attempted or completed property crime. During this same three-year period, only 123,800 of the self-protective behaviors involved a firearm. Of this number, it is not known what type of firearm was used, whether it was fired or not, or whether the use of a gun would even be a legal response to the property crime. And as before, the number may also include off-duty law enforcement officers.