As a longtime partner of the Brady Campaign, we transformed thousands of dense ATF gun dealer inspection reports into an interactive and engaging data visualization and microsite to expose bad actor gun dealers.
Rad Campaign worked closely with Brady Campaign to build a dynamic interactive data visualization for GunStoreTransparency.org
This product educates policymakers, the media, and researchers about which gun dealers violate US laws and provides solutions to hold those dealers accountable for contributing to gun violence.
Our Strategy
For years, the Brady Campaign filed Freedom of Information Act requests and fought in court to obtain gun store inspection reports from ATF. When they were finally granted thousands of records, we collaborated with Brady's legal, policy, and data teams to create the largest ever public database of gun store violations — exposing never-before-released records that identify gun stores cited for breaking the law and administrative actions taken by ATF against these dealers.
The site was built on Drupal to be flexible and rapidly scale as Brady adds new data and product features.
- Compelling, personal content — The site includes more imagery in the design, as well as spaces to feature volunteers and highlight legislative accomplishments.
- State pages showcasing local campaigns — As the nonpartisan advocacy affiliate of the American Cancer Society, ACS CAN has a presence in all 50 states, where staff and volunteers run campaigns on a local, state, and national level. They needed the ability to easily post actions, events, and updates about these campaigns quickly and easily. This involved RAD setting up custom workflows and configuring taxonomies to organize content around topic areas.
- Create a user-friendly design that empowers people to visually explore the data, viewing inspection reports by zip code, violation type, and year.
- Provide options for users to navigate data via searchable maps with a connected table display of results as well as pop-up info cards — showing key information about a specific gun store, its violations, and a link to view the ATF report.
Impact
With a 92% engagement rate on the website and massive media coverage the launch of GunsStoreTransparency.org has seen a huge return on investment. The site has garnered the attention of key policymakers including the Biden Administration, who used the data to vet a new nominee to head ATF. Gun control advocates, researchers, law enforcement, and influencers are amplifying the data across social media including National Security Advisor Susan Rice.
News outlets such as the New York Times are using the data to highlight specific information around mass gun violence and the lack of enforcement by the ATF in holding gun store dealers accountable for violations. Major corporations including banking institutions are leveraging the site's data in their vetting processes for loan and credit applications by U.S. gun stores. The site has also become a significant fundraising tool for Brady to acquire major donors.
