Rather than purchasing banner ads or television spots, gun manufacturers and retailers embed themselves directly into the content itself, sponsoring guntubers who showcase, test, and enthusiastically endorse their products, with a successful channel pulling in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year through a mix of ad revenue and direct industry sponsorships. This influencer marketing model allows the industry to sidestep the advertising restrictions that apply to traditional media: Major broadcasters, including ABC and CBS, do not accept firearms advertisements, and Google, Meta, and YouTube itself all prohibit paid gun ads, which in turn pushes manufacturers to sponsorships as a primary marketing outlet. According to estimates by Oregon State University marketing researchers, social media influencers drove between 1 and 1.5 million firearm sales in 2025 alone, worth up to $825 million in retail revenue. This figure is especially notable for an industry that spends less than one percent of its revenue on conventional advertising.
Sponsorship arrangements between guntubers and firearms companies take many forms. In some cases, creators receive free firearms, accessories, or ammunition in exchange for reviews and on-camera demonstrations. In others, formal paid partnerships require creators to feature specific products prominently in their videos, often with little to no disclosure to viewers. Several members of the gun industry have leveraged guntube sponsorships to reach younger, digitally native audiences. The result is a blend of entertainment and advertisement, in which the line between genuine endorsement and paid promotion is deliberately obscured.
Beyond direct sponsorship, the gun industry benefits from the broader cultural ecosystem that guntube has helped construct. Channels with millions of subscribers lean heavily into their hosts’ military or law enforcement backgrounds, using tactical language, special operations equipment, and military cosplay as both content and brand-building strategy. When guntubers present a particular rifle as a symbol of freedom or tactical readiness, they are not simply reviewing a product; they are selling viewers an identity. The firearms marketing industry has been explicit about why: with paid gun advertising banned across Google, Meta, and YouTube itself, influencer marketing has become one of the the only methods available for gun businesses seeking to reach new customers online. The guntube ecosystem was deliberately constructed and funded by an industry shut out of conventional advertising.
The reach of guntube’s industry-funded content extends to children. A 2023 report found that content creators are sharing hyper-aggressive and hyper-sexualized content directly with minors to promote military-style weapons. Accordingly, while social media platforms may ban direct firearms advertising, they widely permit industry-sponsored influencer content, rendering the ad bans ineffective. This is particularly true with firearms content creators, as the report found that endorsements of “firearms and their accessories without including any disclosures about compensation are ubiquitous on social media.”
As this report was being written, YouTube updated its branded content policies in September 2026 to bar “weapons or ammunition” from “any content on YouTube influenced by a brand partner in exchange for something of value, such as featuring or promoting a brand’s products or services in exchange for payment, free products, or sponsorships.” Whether this policy will be meaningfully or consistently enforced by YouTube, and its effect on guntube, remains to be seen.
— Everytown’s The Smoking Gun in Loaded Content
They cannot even get one paragraph in before they reveal their goals and biases.
"YouTube allows firearm content, we're going to bring up a mass shooter now to tell you why this is a problem."
They try to pad this with throwing out the usual "military-style assault weapons" but… pic.twitter.com/5t5c0aDUih
— National Association for Gun Rights (@gunrights) September 16, 2026
Harmful? Hyper-sexualized?
Can’t have minors stumbling across that stuff.
Welp, I guess they’ll just have to back to thot try-on videos sponsored by nicotine pouch companies.