Public Health Strategies Used Against Cigarettes Could Help Reduce Appeal of Firearms, Paper Argues

One thing that is never really illustrated in movies is how loud pistols are too. Shoot a pistol without ear protection and your ears can ring for hours or weeks depending on caliber and barrel length.

Romer suggests that the public health campaign against cigarettes may offer a useful model. That effort combined education about smoking’s health consequences with measures to reduce the promotion and portrayal of cigarettes, including eliminating paid tobacco product placement in entertainment. Portrayals of smoking in popular movies declined along with population smoking rates.

I feel like I’m missing something, but cigarettes were never integral to entire genres, like action movies (and video games). I mean, the plot of John Wick wouldn’t really change if Keanu had a cigarette in the corner of his mouth all the time, but it absolutely would without guns.

I also think we’ve come a long way since the Schwarzenegger-era of mowing down waves of bad guys while hip-firing without ever reloading, in terms of depicting ease-of-use.

EDIT: Read the paper and not just the article, the problematic part I was missing was the sanitized gun-violence in PG-13 movies, which kind of makes sense.