THE LOST CLASS

About the Work Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens in America. This year alone, 3,044 members of the high school class of 2021 didn’t graduate because they were killed by a gun. To directly confront this problem, we held a graduation ceremony for this Lost Class and invited two prominent pro-gun advocates to deliver the commencement addresses. To do this, we created James Madison Academy, a fake online high school named after the author of the Second Amendment. We then invited David Keene, former NRA President, and John Lott, author of More Guns, Less Crime, to make the school’s commencement speech. We filmed their speeches during what they believed was a dress rehearsal. But really, they were speaking to The Lost Class of 2021 - those students who couldn’t graduate this year because they were killed by a gun. The ocean of empty chairs visually accompanied by two prominent gun rights advocates sparked an international conversation around background checks. Ultimately, the film, along with print, OOH, and microsite, turned these two gun advocates into the unlikely spokesmen for an anti-gun violence campaign.