Joe Camel, Meet Junior Shooters

Joe Camel was the “cute critter” corporate image used by tobacco-giant, R.J. Reynolds (Nabisco) to sell its Camel brand cigarettes from 1987 until 1997. “In 1991, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study showing that by age six nearly as many children could correctly respond that ‘Joe Camel’ was associated with cigarettes as could respond that the Disney Channel logo was associated with Mickey Mouse, and alleged that the ‘Joe Camel’ campaign was targeting children, despite R. J. Reynolds’ contention that the campaign had been researched only among adults and was directed only at the smokers of other brands. At that time it was also estimated that 32.8% of all cigarettes sold illegally to underage buyers were Camels, up from less than one percent.”

The AMA asked the company to stop a campaign that seemed aimed at creating a new generation of smokers, but R.J. Reynolds refused. In 1991, San Francisco attorney, Janet Mangini filed suit against the tobacco company alleging “that teenage smokers accounted for US$476 million of Camel cigarette sales in 1992. When the Joe Camel advertisements started in 1988, that figure was only at US$6 million, ‘implicitly suggesting such advertisements have harmed a great many teenagers by luring them into extended use of and addiction to tobacco products.’” Wikipedia. In July of 1997, R.J. Reynolds relented and pulled the campaign.

Today, after massive numbers of state lawsuits have been filed and settled, there is little doubt that addiction to cigarettes is deadly. Still marketing tobacco to kids was essential to create the product demand to keep the American tobacco industry viable. “The US Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 90% of smokers begin their tobacco usage before age 20. Of these, 50% begin tobacco use by age 14 and 25% begin their use by age 12. Children are three times more sensitive to advertising as concluded in the April 1996 Journal of Marketing study.” Wikipedia. Simply put, kids just don’t have their guard up yet and are particularly vulnerable to suggestion. With current strong proscriptions against advertising cigarettes, particularly to minors, in most Western nations, U.S. tobacco has turned its sights on addicting kids in the less-regulated developing world.

But the lesson on marketing to children was not lost on the American munitions industry. What’s more, they not only have rural traditions that teach the young the skills and ethics of hunting, they have non-profits like the NRA and the Second Amendment itself, whatever that badly drafted provision means (“well regulated militia”???). With shooting competitions and hunting falling in popularity and with increasing pressure towards gun control stemming from recent mass shootings, the gun industry needed to insure enough passionate gun enthusiasts to insure long-term economic success in selling their weapons to the general public.

“The industry’s strategies include giving firearms, ammunition and cash to youth groups; weakening state restrictions on hunting by young children; marketing an affordable military-style rifle for ‘junior shooters’ and sponsoring semiautomatic-handgun competitions for youths; and developing a target-shooting video game that promotes brand-name weapons, with links to the Web sites of their makers.

“The pages of Junior Shooters, an industry-supported magazine that seeks to get children involved in the recreational use of firearms, once featured a smiling 15-year-old girl clutching a semiautomatic rifle. At the end of an accompanying article that extolled target shooting with a Bushmaster AR-15 — an advertisement elsewhere in the magazine directed readers to a coupon for buying one — the author encouraged youngsters to share the article with a parent… ‘Who knows?’ it said. ‘Maybe you’ll find a Bushmaster AR-15 under your tree some frosty Christmas morning!’…

“The [gun industry’s marketing] campaign picked up steam about five years ago with the completion of a major study that urged a stronger emphasis on the ‘recruitment and retention’ of new hunters and target shooters… The overall objective was summed up in another study, commissioned last year by the shooting sports industry, that suggested encouraging children experienced in firearms to recruit other young people. The report, which focused on children ages 8 to 17, said these ‘peer ambassadors’ should help introduce wary youngsters to guns slowly, perhaps through paintball, archery or some other less intimidating activity.” New York Times, January 26^th. And so, the National Rifle Association of America and the National Shooting Sports Foundation, among others, have focused heavily on building the next generation of shooters.

As prospects for a significant legislative curtailment of weapons that are designed principally as effective killing tools to take out as many human beings as possible in the shortest time – assault weapons and guns with oversized magazines – seem particularly dim given the composition of the U.S. House of Representatives, should we feel comfortable that political organizations are focused on organizing our children to carry our murderous American tradition forward?

I’m Peter Dekom, and marketing instruments of death to children seems particularly reprehensible to me.