Elon Musk has championed the First and Second Amendments in the United States Bill of Rights. However, X, formerly Twitter, has a policy that prohibits the promotion of weapons and weapon accessories worldwide. In effect, this bans paid advertising for all weapons and weapon accessories, even so far as to include airsoft guns, air guns, paintball guns, and imitation guns. From business.x.com:
This policy applies to monetization on X and X’s paid advertising products.
What’s the policy?
X prohibits the promotion of weapons and weapon accessories globally.
Examples of weapons and weapon accessories include:
- Guns, including airsoft guns, air guns, blow guns, paintball guns, antique guns, replica guns, and imitation guns
- Rental of guns (other than from shooting ranges)
- Stun guns, taser guns, mace, pepper spray, or other similar self defense weapons
- Swords, machetes, and other edged/bladed weapons
- Fireworks, flamethrowers, and other pyrotechnic devices
- Knives, including butterfly knives, fighting knives, switchblades, disguised knives, and throwing stars
Most large platforms have caved to anti-Second Amendment propaganda. The X policy likely predates Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. Elon Musk has been a strong proponent of the Second Amendment. The X policy on weapons could change in the future, as each platform privately makes these decisions.
Comcast Corporation banned advertisements promoting guns or gun sales in 2013. Time Warner banned some gun advertising in 2013. From opb.org:
So what this means is that the main sort of conventional media channels for advertising of other consumer products are not available to gun manufacturers. For example, Comcast and Time Warner have initiated bans on firearms in 2013. Other major television broadcasters like ESPN and Fox and CBS do not accept advertisements for firearms or ammunition. And major digital and social media platforms like Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, prohibit ads for firearms and ammunition.
Such broad bans are having unintended consequences. Advertising is decentralized today and targeted. Nationwide TV ads may not be cost-effective for the firearms industry. This may not hold true for X, Facebook, or YouTube.
Being banned on large platforms sends a subtle message that guns are bad. The absence of gun advertisements is unlikely to convince anyone that guns are not helpful. Programming, both fiction and factual, shows many examples where guns are used for positive purposes. Anyone who studies history sees many examples where those with guns rule those without guns. Advertising bans on major outlets and networks push people who sell guns and related products to advertise in other ways. In today’s fractured and partisan media, this means gun-related channels such as AmmoLand and popular gun influencers are able to attract more advertising dollars. People who are interested in purchasing guns find them in places where guns are valued.
It is similar to what happened after the Gun Control Act of 1968. The act pushed most casual sellers of guns and ammunition out of the marketplace. When this correspondent grew up, it seemed that about half of the retail outlets sold guns and ammunition. It was common to see them sold in many different stores. After 1968, gun sales moved into specialized gun stores. The gun stores became centers for the spread of political information and nodes of political networks to organize gun owners. They still serve that purpose. The Internet has become a more effective method of organizing and informing Second Amendment supporters. Influencers on the Internet provide more specific, accurate, and detailed reporting on Second Amendment issues than anything in old, large legacy media.
It would be beneficial to the 2A community to see Elon Musk make a political statement by allowing for firearms, ammunition, and accessories to be advertised on X. It could help X stand out from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and others. It could enhance X’s reputation as the freedom brand. Elon Musk would gain credibility by backing his views with his actions.
This correspondent does not worry about it. Elon Musk has already demonstrated he is a Second Amendment advocate.
The effort to ban gun advertising has backfired. It has not worked. Consider the number of guns in today’s society. Since the Internet became popular in the mid-1990s, the number of privately owned firearms has skyrocketed. In 1995, there were about 243 million privately owned firearms in the United States. In the last 30 years, the number has increased to about 540 million (as of December 2025), representing a nearly 300 million increase in firearms over the same period. The number of firearms per person in the United States has increased from .890 in 1993 to about 1.57 firearms per person in the USA today, based on 540 million private firearms in the USA and a 2025 population of 343 million.
Some of this stupendous increase is because firearms today take much less labor to make, distribute, and purchase. They are often of better quality. The same goes for ammunition. Firearms and ammunition today take much less of a person’s time to acquire.
The nature of reality itself plays a role. Firearms increase an individual’s personal power. A person with increased personal power has advantages over those who lack it. Firearms are great equalizers. A 100-pound woman with a pistol can intimidate a 250-pound man without one. When both have firearms, parity is accomplished.
The ban on advertising for weapons has not had the effect that those who pushed for it desired. Society has sought to reestablish the Second Amendment as a guarantee of empowerment for the weak and a check on government power.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
