A series of recent shootings have refocused the nation’s attention on so-called “castle doctrine” — the idea that a person doesn’t have a “duty to retreat” before using deadly force to defend themselves when in their home — and “stand your ground” laws that apply this idea outside the home, using what critics call a “shoot first, ask questions later” model that allows “anyone who believes their life to be in danger to use lethal force in an act of self-defense, without any duty to retreat.” 

On April 13, an elderly man in Kansas City, Missouri, shot teenager Ralph Yarl in the head after Yarl mistakenly rang the home's doorbell while he was trying to pick up his siblings. On April 15, a homeowner in rural New York shot and killed 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis when a car she was riding in pulled into his driveway by accident while searching for a friend’s house. On April 18, a man in Florida shot a 6-year-old girl, her parents, and another neighbor after a basketball accidentally rolled onto his property. The next day, a man in Texas shot two high school cheerleaders who had mistaken his car for their own after a late-night practice.

According to an April 22 report by Insider, gun violence experts say that these recent shootings are “a larger symptom of a distinctly American culture that empowers people to open fire, even when there's no real threat.” This violent culture stems from the NRA’s decadeslong campaign pushing “stand your ground” laws across the nation. 

Most Americans are not satisfied with existing gun laws, but right-wing media continue to defend the role guns play in America. For example, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed in January that assault weapons “are not a threat to anybody,” and the Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles said that guns had “nothing to do with” a recent mass shooting in Nashville. Salem Media Group’s Dennis Prager has falsely insisted that “there's no way to stop the ubiquity of guns” in America, and Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk has claimed, “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.”

By defending the role guns play in America and working to convince Americans that there is no real possibility of passing stronger gun control measures in the U.S., right-wing media encourage the false belief that the only way to make ourselves safer is to take matters into our own hands and further arm ourselves. This provides cover for politicians who work with the NRA and, conveniently, creates bigger business for gun sellers. 

In the last year — from April 20, 2022, through April 20, 2023 — Facebook has enabled the NRA and right-wing media outlets to sensationalize and amplify stories about alleged home invasions across its platform. Several of these stories pushed the narrative that people need to own guns in order to defend their families, and even praised people who shoot and kill alleged home intruders. 

In the last year, Facebook pages that regularly post about U.S. news and politics shared at least 8,100 posts about home invasions, earning over 6.5 million total interactions. Right-leaning pages shared only 25% of these posts (about 2,000) but earned 65% of total interactions, amounting to over 4.2 million.

Several of these posts praised elderly homeowners in particular for shooting, and in some instances killing, alleged home intruders, with Rumble’s Steven Crowder captioning one such post “nice shot.” Others celebrated instances when it was revealed that homeowners would not be charged for shooting and killing people who trespassed on their property. 

Ideologically nonaligned Facebook pages shared 72% of posts (nearly 6,000), but earned only 30% of total interactions (nearly 2 million). Left-leaning pages shared only 3% of posts (about 200) and earned 5% of total interactions, amounting to 294,000.

The NRA's official Facebook page earned the most total interactions on posts about home invasions during the time frame studied. The page earned over 1.1 million total interactions on just 9 such posts, meaning the NRA shared just 0.1% of Facebook posts about home invasions from U.S. news and politics pages over the last year, but earned 17% of total interactions. 

After the NRA, the 6 Facebook pages that earned the most total interactions on posts about home invasions were pages for right-wing outlets, organizations, and personalities. In order, they include Blue Lives Matter, Fox News, Breitbart, Ben Shapiro, Colion Noir, and TheBlaze.

The top 6 posts that earned the most total interactions were from the NRA, and all featured headlines praising homeowners for shooting alleged intruders. 

The NRA has also run at least 115 ads on Meta platforms over the last year on an additional Facebook page. These ads endorsed midterm candidates it claimed would defend your “right to protect your home and family” and attacked candidates it claimed would “leave your family defenseless.” Facebook earned at least $500,000 on these ads, which reached an estimated audience of up to 60.9 million users.

Facebook has a history of profiting from networks of right-wing pages that exploit its platform to amplify various right-wing talking points — including conservative narratives around gun ownership. 

The Western Journal shared nearly 350 posts about home invasions in the last year across 19 Facebook pages, collectively earning nearly 160,000 total interactions. Some of these posts featured an article praising a resident for sending suspects “running for their lives,” while others claimed, “You know what they say — real gun control means hitting your target. And this homeowner did just that.”

TheBlaze shared 195 posts about home invasions in the last year across 10 Facebook pages, collectively earning more than 300,000 total interactions. Some of these posts featured an article claiming that “armed home invaders wearing ski masks” shot a homeowner, but that homeowner also had a gun and shot “both crooks dead.” Others featured an article headlined, “Video: It’s all smiles before crooks invade home; seconds later it’s all backsides as they run for their lives from homeowner firing ‘AK-47-style’ gun at them.”

The Daily Wire’s network shared 160 posts about home invasions in the last year across 7 Facebook pages, collectively earning at least 285,000 total interactions on these posts — some of which cited “castle doctrine” as protecting a woman in Texas who fatally shot an alleged home invader.

Fox News shared 24 posts about home invasions in the last year across 3 Facebook pages, collectively earning more than 200,000 total interactions. Some of these posts praised elderly homeowners for turning the tables on suspected home invaders.

Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters compiled a list of 1,773 Facebook pages that frequently posted about U.S. politics from January 1 to August 25, 2020. For an explanation of how we compiled pages and identified them as right-leaning, left-leaning, or ideologically nonaligned, see the methodology here. The resulting list consisted of 771 right-leaning pages, 497 ideologically nonaligned pages, and 505 left-leaning pages.

Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters compiled all posts about home invasions from the pages on this list that were posted between April 20, 2022 at 2 p.m. ET and April 20, 2023 at 10 a.m. ET. We reviewed data for these posts, including total interactions (reactions, comments, and shares).

We defined posts as being about home invasions if they had any of the following terms in the message or in the included link, article headline, or article description: “home intruder,” “home intruders,” “home invader,” “home invaders,” “home invasion,” “trespasser,” “trespassers,” or “trespassing.”