Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and adolescents in America. Because of the gun violence epidemic, groups like Project Unloaded believe that “where there are more guns, children and teens are less safe.”

Project Unloaded, a gun violence prevention group, works with young people across the country to shift the culture around guns.

“We are working to change culture and change the way that people think about guns in our country,” Olivia Brown, Project Unloaded’s program manager, told Reckon.

The fast-growing number of injuries and deaths involving firearms — with more than 48,000 Americans dead from gun injuries in 2022 alone — prompted U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy to issue a declaration on firearms, naming gun violence as a public health crisis, on June 25.

“People want to be able to walk through their neighborhoods and be safe,” Murthy told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “America should be a place where all of us can go to school, go to work, go to the supermarket, go to our house of worship, without having to worry that that’s going to put our life at risk.”

To drive down gun deaths, Murthy called on the U.S. to ban “assault weapons and large-capacity magazines for civilian use,” introduce universal background checks for purchasing guns, regulate the industry, pass laws that would restrict their use in public spaces and penalize people who fail to safely store their weapons.

A 2020 survey from the Firearm Industry Trade Association found that Americans are buying a record number of firearms, but many neglect to unload and lock them up because they believe they might need them in an emergency.

This has often led to a person being injured or killed nearly every day in America because a child has unintentionally fired a gun, according to reports from 2015 to 2022 compiled by Everytown.

“We have seen this drastic shift where people are starting to believe more frequently that guns make them safer even though research and experience show us that that’s not true. Especially young people have had a drastic shift where they believe more than anyone else that a gun will keep them safer,” Brown said. “So Project Unloaded was created to disrupt that and provide education to teens about the risk of having and using a gun.”

Reckon spoke with Brown about Project Unloaded, their mission to change the culture around guns and the surgeon general’s latest declaration.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

How has the work that Project Unloaded has done and continues to do been crucial as people in power start to make changes to address gun violence?

One of the things mentioned in the U.S. Surgeon General’s declaration is this idea of needing multiple approaches in order to solve the problem, like a multi-pronged effort that ultimately leads to reducing deaths and injuries. So I think when it comes to the work that Project Unloaded does, we are a piece of that puzzle and we are just as effective.

We often come across folks who are like: Is it even smart to use social media to reach this demographic? Why aren’t we doing some other things? Why don’t we just focus on policy?

But I think all hands need to be on deck and we should all be doing something across the country and across the movement to save lives by reducing gun violence.

We should be talking about the culture that even gets us here to begin with. We should be talking about the myths that make it so that people believe guns are making them safer and then we should be educating them on why they don’t. I think that’s where Project Unloaded fits into the puzzle.

Why was it important that the U.S. Surgeon General declare gun violence as a public health crisis and not just a political one?

One thing that we learned from how young people think about guns and gun violence is that they are afraid of learning more and seeking out a gun debate. Young people are turned off by the gun debate even though it isn’t a debate; it is a matter of safety and it’s a matter of public health.

But when it’s been framed as ‘you need to either be on one end or another of the spectrum of guns’ it is really scary and off-putting to young people who are so impacted by it.

This is why I think it is important from a Project Unloaded stance that we emphasize the public health emergency and epidemic that we’re experiencing right now with guns and gun violence to our audience and young people so they can understand that this is information that they should know whether or not they want to be politically engaged with it or not.

Gen Z and Gen Alpha are considered some of the most politically engaged generations. Why is it important for Project Unloaded to reach them where they are on social media?

I think that throughout history, young people have been the group that will change the world. We see that across every major cultural and political movement throughout the dawn of time and that piece about using social media to engage us is just right. At this moment in history, social media has become such a big part of our lives and such a big part of how Gen Z and Gen Alpha experience the world.

So many of the things that we learn about pop culture, politics and [what’s] happening around the world, we are learning on social media. So for Project Unloaded, trying to push a risk education message about guns — especially one of the things that young people care about the most when we research them and poll them — social media is definitely a strong channel for that because it’s just where we are these days.

It’s how we have been organizing over the past decade and how we will continue until the foreseeable future.

What advice would you give another young person who wants to get involved with the movement to stop gun violence?

First, follow Project Uploaded to start getting the facts.

Then I would say, young people find other young people and find those organizations who can be a landing spot for you because we can’t go about this work alone for any measure. There are so many strong organizations that are doing this work already that are looking for young people in this movement. A lot of people can be turned off by how political this feels, but the community will help with a lot of that resistance. Don’t let the politics of the situation stop you from playing a role in stopping a public health tragedy.

You don’t have to be a part of a debate to make change and, if making change is important, there are so many ways to do that.