Critical ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ Video

Mothers for Democracy has little tolerance for the popular phrasing response “Thoughts and Prayers” to gun violence events, especially those that kill and injure multiple people. They decided it was necessary and hopefully beneficial to create a message in an effort to get people’s attention and did so, posting a brief, one-minute video on YouTube.

Gun violence and gun reform are highly-charged social issues and MFD decided it had to address what it sees as a lazy, compassionless, “worthless” response for the social emergency.

Clearly, the organization desires meaningful action through government that has yet to be legislated as the video pointedly, mockingly illustrates and verbalizes at the end with, “Thoughts and Prayers are meaningless when you can act. Act now. Demand gun reform.”

The purpose of the messaging, according to Nancy Thompson, the founder and executive director at Mothers for Democracy, was to see if something new might move the needle in making progress.

“Just trying to point out a metaphor to show the hypocrisy,” she points out. “The goal was to find a different way to communicate, ‘Why are we not doing more to save kids from gun violence?’ We need to do more than stand around. We need to dive in and save the children.”

Contrary to publicly expressed assumptions, MFD is not against guns.

“We are not trying to take everyone’s guns. We’re in Texas. We believe guns have a purpose,” Thompson says, going on to add that a hunter would not use a gun that would shred the meat when ammunition hit an animal and that weapons used in mass shootings do just that to human beings, shred them. MFD does not believe that assault rifles serve a purpose.

The status quo requires immediate and effective change.

“We need to make the violence go down. We need to make an intentional decision. It’s beyond an epidemic,” she says. “We need to be part of the change. That is going to require people not standing around. It’s a numbers game and playing a lottery with our lives every day. We need some adults at the political table that will benefit all Americans and not just the gun lobbyists.”

How effective is this message in getting a citizen’s attention if they are not already aligned in agreement with its purpose? The answer might depend on who you ask and their professional opinion, which Communication Intelligence magazine has done.

Rick Alcantara

“The message behind the video is powerful, memorable and uncomplicated,” says Rick Alcantara, the principal at Rick Alcantara Consulting. “It will grab the attention of gun opponents and advocates, right from its opening frames. While the former will see it as a rallying cry, the latter will see it as propaganda.”

Another professional sees this messaging and the images associated with it as a swing-and-a-miss decision and ignorant understanding.

“This commercial will fail miserably and nothing about it is good. The failures are plenty,” says Mark Sachs, the founder at Orwell Grey Strategic Communications and the author of The Cancel Culture Curse.

“Showing a child fall and potentially drown in a pool is not nearly as horrifying visually — though the death of a child is always horrifying — as gun wounds and there is no correlation between a pool and gun violence.”

To him a question comes to mind.

“Why is someone going to watch this until the end?” Sachs rhetorically asks. “Trying to draw the connection is too much of a leap for a viewer.”

To Alcantara, there are useful points communicated in the video.

“The message effectively communicates the hollowness of the ‘thoughts and prayers’ statements some politicians, media pundits and gun advocates dispense after mass shootings,” he says.

It’s not all praise from him in his analysis.

“However, the video fails in three ways,” Alcantara continues. “First, it offers no solutions to gun violence. Second, it leaves viewers wondering why the adult didn’t dive into the pool to save the child. Third, the macabre nature of the video will turn off people on both sides of the gun debate.”

Mark Sachs

Sachs is even less impressed, passionately so, for different reasons. To him, the numbers, as in the math and research, just don’t add up to support the message.

“The statistical likelihood of an affluent — big house with a pool — white child dying from a gunshot wound is remarkably small,” Sachs asserts. “So, the commercial is just not realistic. There is no connection whatsoever between a white, young child drowning in a pool and a black youth dying in a violent crime, except for the claim at the end of this video that, on average, the number one killer of children is gunshots.

“67% of violent gun death victims are black youth. And, 78% of white youth deaths are by suicide. What are the similar gun regulations for these two demographic realities? Are they in any way reflected in a commercial about drowning?

“To equate drowning, for which there is one protocol, teaching a child as young as two or three to swim, to dealing with gun deaths for which there are numerous solutions depending on the demographics of the victim, is worthless. It just makes the producers of this video appear out of touch,” he says.

The probability of the desired outcome from this video might be low. It just might not prove persuasive. Yet it could ‘win’ in one area.

“While the message is sound, the delivery is extreme,” Alcantara opines. “If the goal is to generate media coverage and outrage, it will succeed. If the goal is to change entrenched beliefs, it will likely fail.”

Sachs sees indifference or confusion as the outcome.

“I don’t believe anyone will pay any attention to this commercial,” he concludes. “Moreover, if they do watch the entire commercial, they will be left wondering, ‘Other than telling me guns kill young people, what are you actually proposing for realistic gun regulations that will deal with the black youth dying from violent crime and reducing white teen suicides?”

MFD communicated that they were able to gauge effectiveness in different ways.

“We did testing about the message,” Thompson says and the findings revealed that, “It moved Republicans by five points, which is amazing. It changed the hearts and minds of the Republican voter. It affected non-voters. The majority of those polled said they were more motivated to vote. We need to activate voters and non-voters to vote.”

She knew what was at stake by putting the message out.

“We were taking a huge risk,” Thompson says, knowing that the “why” was important. “We’re fighting back for the majority of Americans.”

Despite that risk, “We saw very little backlash. Ninety-five percent of the feedback has been amazing,” she says.

Even the negative reactions were positive in her mind. “My inbox was flooded with threats. All the crazy gun voters wrote about it. So we know they saw the video.”

Yet upon further examination of IP addresses there wasn’t a high volume of nasty, threatening emails. It was one person sending the vast majority of them she says.

“We don't want to take guns away from gun owners. We just want common sense gun laws and to keep our kids safe,” Thompson declares, talking about raising the legal age to purchase.

“The impulsivity of an 18-year old is different from a 21-year old. We need to stop standing around the f*cking pool. We need to jump in and help. We need to make a difference. We have to try. We don’t need to be perfect but we have to try.”