The Guardian Asks If "Gun Lobby" Can Be Beat Through Social Media

The Guardian asks that question in this article.

Gun control campaigners are making greater use of social media to organise their supporters across the US, in an effort to digitally disrupt better-funded pro-gun lobbying groups like the NRA.

Three groups – Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Americans for Responsible Solutions, and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America – came together at the SXSW conference in Austin to discuss their digital strategies.

The first two of those groups may have well-known figureheads – politicians Michael Bloomberg and Gabrielle Giffords respectively – but they are also working hard to spark grassroots online campaigns for supporters to press for changes to state and federal gun laws.

“The problem here is that there are more guns in the United States than there are people. That’s not necessarily a problem in itself, but our laws are letting far too many of those guns fall into the wrong hands,” said Glaze, setting the scene for the groups’ digital efforts.

If you are looking for grassroots support, looking strictly at the numbers, Moms Demand Action has 153,000 followers on Facebook.  Mayors Against Illegal Guns has 21,000.  The NRA destroys both of them with 3.2 million followers on Facebook.  Twitter numbers are lower for NRA but they are still about 10 times higher that the numbers for both Moms Demand Action and Demand Action (the only reference I could find on Twitter to MAIG).  But numbers don't necessarily mean you know how to use social media.  It just means you are good and promotion and getting people to click a "Like" or "Follow" button on a web page.  It seems that NRA has improved their use of the medium. 

As far as effect grassroots activity, NRA members filled a meeting room for the NRA-ILA Grassroots Seminar at the NRA Annual Meeting in Houston and heard NRA-ILA staff and fellow NRA members talk about the effective use use of social media and how to make a difference during the legislative process and campaigns.  By the looks of this crowd of gun banners at the SXSW conference in Austin last month, it appears they have a ways to go.