I keep getting recommended gun videos on shorts. I'm not in the slightest bit interested. I've tried weeding them out by going 'don't recommend channel' or disliking.
The fatal flaw mistake that you're making is interacting with it. By going don't recommend this channel or disliking you are still interacting with it. Interacting is a positive metric. Ignore with your brain and don't interact.
Not true in my case. Also, removing content pieces from watch history helps immediately.
My usual routine is: dislike, not interested (or don’t recommend channel in case it’s all bad), then go to history and X the video. This clearly works for me.