Illustration by Joan Wong for ProPublica

Are you “led by your emotions” but “reluctant to express them”? Do you enjoy volunteering and hands-on activities? If so, and you purchased a firearm in the last several decades, America’s chief gun lobby has a Senate candidate it would like to talk to you about. 

Those traits belong to “The Carer,” one of five psychological profiles the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica developed on behalf of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, as part of an effort to elect Donald Trump in 2016 and ensure Republicans kept control of the Senate. According to Cambridge, carers are persuaded by messaging that appeals to “their altruistic side” and puts forward concepts that “will enhance their family life or their lifestyle.” This is an ad that targeted that personality type: 

ProPublica reporter Corey G. Johnson spent months reporting on how, starting in the late 1990s, some of America’s most iconic gun-makers turned over sensitive personal information on hundreds of thousands of customers — without their knowledge or consent — to political operatives in order to help elect gun-friendly politicians.

The NSSF declined to comment on Johnson’s most recent stories but previously defended its data collection, saying its “activities are, and always have been, entirely legal and within the terms and conditions of any individual manufacturer, company, data broker, or other entity.”

In 2016, the NSSF gave Cambridge a huge cache of data on gun owners derived from warranty cards, voter rolls, magazine subscriptions and hunting licenses, according to a trove of Cambridge records reviewed by ProPublica. The trade group also handed the now-disgraced consulting firm a database of customers of a popular sporting goods retailer.

In Johnson’s latest story, he traces how Cambridge matched the names and addresses in the gun lobby data with a wealth of information on purchasing, lifestyle and opinions provided by data brokers. Cambridge used a psychological assessment tool to organize people into five groups it called risk-takers, carers, go-getters, individualists and supporters. Members of each group received targeted ads on Facebook and through the mail. The messages garnered nearly 378 million views online, according to Cambridge’s internal metric reports.

“You’ve heard about Cambridge Analytica, but you never heard this part,” Johnson told me.

It’s one thing to be aware that shopping and internet browsing habits can be harvested by data brokers and used to make targeted advertisements, whether for products or political candidates. It’s another to see the intimate details that Cambridge used to create psychologically targeted political advertising and how the ads for each psychological profile differed.

Ads targeted at carers feature images of multigenerational families spending time outdoors and encourage the readers to “take care of your country,” while ads for the risk-takers warn that the Supreme Court could be “turned into an enemy to your gun rights.” 

(An example of an ad delivered to risk-taker profiles)

One of the reasons NSSF stepped up its efforts in 2016 was because the trade organization saw a potential turning point in U.S. gun policy, Johnson said. It wasn’t just about getting Trump elected in 2016, but also keeping the Senate Republican majority. A Democratic president with a Democratic Senate would have made the possibility of gun bans or other restrictions much higher. 

The stories in this series have resonated with gun owners, Johnson said, especially with those for whom privacy is as important as the Second Amendment. In a recent story, a passionate gun owner and firearms instructor told Johnson he was incensed to find out his data was among the information handed over to Cambridge Analytica. 

“I like the idea that they’re pro-gun advocates,” Arthur Douglas said of the gun industry. “I don’t like the idea that they’re getting information, possibly illegally, to forward their agenda.”

While gun owners have generally been united about protecting the gun industry and gun rights, Johnson said, his stories have provoked debate about whether the industry has betrayed their trust on “the thing they treasure the most”: privacy.

Over the last week, ProPublica reporters have uncovered further details about how federal agencies have been impacted by the efforts of the Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, as the Trump administration wields untrue assertions about federal workers and shields DOGE from the rules that govern federal agencies, even as it is funded like one.  

Trump and Musk have defended DOGE as a tool for trimming fat from what they see as a bloated bureaucracy. Musk has called DOGE “maximally transparent,” but the group has refused to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests, and Trump officials now say Musk is not actually running it.

Photo by Jason Andrew

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