{"id":2649,"date":"2018-02-25T03:40:10","date_gmt":"2018-02-25T11:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=2649"},"modified":"2018-02-25T03:40:10","modified_gmt":"2018-02-25T11:40:10","slug":"nra-lashes-out-at-boycott-movement-as-united-delta-and-other-corporations-cut-ties-the-washington-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=2649","title":{"rendered":"“NRA lashes out at boycott movement as United, Delta and other corporations cut ties”, The Washington Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

By <\/span>Avi Selk,<\/span> February 24, 2018<\/span><\/p>\n

The National Rifle Association lashed out at corporations rushing to abandon it, as\u00a0companies from United Airlines to\u00a0Best Western have cut ties\u00a0with the gun lobby group under pressure from\u00a0a boycott movement following a Feb. 14 high school shooting.<\/p>\n

Without\u00a0context, twin announcements from Delta and United airlines on\u00a0Saturday morning might look trivial: The end of flight discounts to\u00a0the\u00a0NRA\u2019s annual convention, which few outside the gun rights organization\u00a0likely knew\u00a0existed\u00a0before\u00a0they\u00a0became\u00a0boycott targets.<\/p>\n

But in abandoning the NRA,\u00a0the airlines followed\u00a0car rental giants Avis, Hertz and Enterprise, the Best Western hotel chain, the global insurance company MetLife, and more than a dozen other\u00a0corporations that have severed affiliations with the gun group in the last two days.<\/p>\n

In a statement released Saturday afternoon, the NRA accused\u00a0companies of \u201ca shameful display of political and civic cowardice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet it be absolutely clear,\u201d the NRA\u2019s statement said. \u201cThe loss of a discount will neither scare nor distract one single NRA member from our mission to stand and defend the individual freedoms that have always made America the greatest nation in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s unclear what effect the corporate snubs will have on the NRA, they have given the nascent\u00a0#BoycottNRA<\/a>\u00a0a string of rapid, prominent victories and\u00a0exposed vulnerabilities in a gun rights lobby that had seemed untouchable before 17 people \u2014 most of them students \u2014 were gunned down last week at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.<\/p>\n

The NRA\u00a0claims\u00a05 million members and takes in tens of millions of dollars each year through supporters,\u00a0which it uses to\u00a0fight gun regulations in the name of the\u00a0U.S. Constitution, which guarantees\u00a0Americans\u00a0the right to bear arms.<\/p>\n

[ Obstacles \u2014 and silence \u2014 on Capitol Hill even as clamor for new gun laws grows <\/a>]<\/i><\/p>\n

The group has faced public anger before \u2014 after the massacre of schoolchildren at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012, for example<\/a>. But it\u00a0has always fought back against pushes for new gun laws, and efforts to significantly restrict firearms\u00a0inevitably die out as public fury over the shootings ebbs.<\/p>\n

But outrage over the Parkland shooting \u2014 sustained in part by politically active teenagers who survived the massacre \u2014 has shown no signs of fading.\u00a0Police say a former student killed 17 people with a legally purchased semiautomatic rifle, one of at least 10\u00a0guns he owned.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

As calls for gun\u00a0control have spread, the\u00a0NRA has increasingly become a target of activists,\u00a0with social media hashtags\u00a0urging boycotts of\u00a0any\u00a0corporation\u00a0found to be linked with it.<\/p>\n

Delta\u00a0and United are\u00a0the latest to submit to the pressure.<\/p>\n

First National Bank of Omaha, one of the largest private U.S. banks, may\u00a0have been the first to respond publicly to the boycott calls. The bank had previously advertised\u00a0the \u201cOfficial Credit Card of the NRA,\u201d according to the Omaha World-Herald<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a\u00a0Visa card\u00a0with\u00a05 percent back on gas and sporting good purchases.<\/p>\n

\u201cCustomer feedback has caused us to review our relationship with the NRA,\u201d the bank said in a statement<\/a> published Thursday, eights days after the Parkland shooting. \u201cAs a result, First National Bank of Omaha will not renew its contract with the National Rifle Association to issue the NRA Visa Card.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enterprise followed suit a few hours later. \u201cAll three of our brands have ended the discount for NRA members,\u201d effective March 26,\u00a0the car rental company wrote\u00a0on Twitter<\/a>\u00a0Thursday afternoon.\u00a0Hertz<\/a>, Avis Budget Group and TrueCar<\/a>\u00a0would soon join Enterprise and end their NRA discounts. So did movers\u00a0North American Van Lines<\/a>and Allied Van Lines.<\/a><\/p>\n

On\u00a0Friday morning, Symantec announced that the boycott movement had spread to the software industry. NRA members will now have to pay the same price for its anti-virus software as everyone else.<\/p>\n

On the same day, insurer Chubb Limited\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0that it will stop underwriting \u201cNRA Carry Guard,\u201d a policy marketed to NRA members who face legal or civil lawsuits after they shoot someone, which gun opponents sometimes\u00a0call \u201cmurder insurance.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0A spokesman for Chubb told Reuters that the company had made the decision months ago, but its announcement of the fact on Friday only increased the perception of a boycott movement swelling against the NRA.<\/p>\n

It has now spread across numerous industries and affected some of the world\u2019s largest corporations. The global insurance company\u00a0MetLife said it has terminated discounts\u00a0for\u00a0NRA members<\/a>. Best Western and Wyndham Hotels\u00a0announced they are no longer affiliated with the NRA.<\/p>\n

Facing questions from\u00a0the liberal outlet ThinkProgress<\/a>\u00a0about its discounts for NRA members\u00a0flying to the group\u2019s convention in May, a Delta spokesman at first defended the program as \u201croutine.\u201d The airline\u00a0\u201chas more than 2,000 such contracts in place,\u201d the spokesman said, ThinkProgress wrote Friday evening.<\/p>\n

Come daybreak, Delta abruptly discontinued the discounts and asked the NRA to take\u00a0the airline\u2019s\u00a0name off its website. United Airlines followed suit the same morning.<\/p>\n

Like other companies\u00a0that ditched the NRA, the airlines faced an immediate backlash from\u00a0gun rights\u00a0supporters.<\/p>\n

Some other companies have, so far, not been moved by the\u00a0boycott calls. FedEx, for example, still\u00a0gives NRA Business Alliance members up to a 26 percent discount<\/a>\u00a0on shipping expenses. Google, Amazon, Apple\u00a0and Roku all stream an NRA-produced video channel despite pressure from gun-control groups.<\/p>\n

[ \u2018The Snake\u2019: How Trump appropriated a radical black singer\u2019s lyrics for immigration fearmongering <\/a>]<\/i><\/p>\n

This follows a week when NRA\u00a0leaders spoke\u00a0defiantly\u00a0at public appearances, blaming the fury\u00a0on media manipulation.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany in legacy media love mass shootings,\u201d Loesch said Thursday at\u00a0a conservative political conference.<\/a> \u201cCrying white mothers are ratings gold.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want to make us all less free,\u201d NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre said when he took the microphone. The correct response to the Florida shooting, he said, was more armed security on school campuses \u2014 not fewer guns in the United States.<\/p>\n

Pressure campaigns\u00a0have become a favorite tool of liberal groups during Trump\u2019s presidency \u2014 from\u00a0early efforts <\/a>to boycott Trump-branded products to a Twitter campaign that identified and exposed<\/a>\u00a0people\u00a0seen marching\u00a0at a far-right protest in Charlottesville this past summer. Social media\u00a0and Internet companies began to ban far-right personalities from their sites after that rally turned violent.<\/p>\n

So far, for all the companies that have signed on, the\u00a0NRA boycotts have managed only to wipe out a few peripheral perks for the group\u2019s members. But if\u00a0the movement keeps spreading, there are signs it could threaten the financial and political\u00a0cornerstones of\u00a0the gun lobby. Still, the long-term effects are unknown.<\/p>\n

After the Parkland shooting, a\u00a0prominent City Council member in Dallas\u00a0said the city no longer wants the NRA to hold its convention there in May, Fox News\u00a0reported.<\/a>\u00a0But\u00a0officials in Kansas and Nebraska have invited the gun group\u2019s business.<\/p>\n

Florida Gov. Rick Scott and other Republicans have endorsed banning rifle sales to anyone under age 21 \u2014\u00a0which the NRA opposes.<\/a>\u00a0Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), on the other hand, at a recent CNN town hall this week\u00a0said he would continue to accept\u00a0political contributions from the gun rights group.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

According to Business Insider<\/a>, the\u00a0NRA is\u00a0funded largely by the gun industry,\u00a0which has contributed tens of millions of dollars and helped\u00a0the gun lobby build alliances and power networks across the U.S. political system.<\/p>\n

[ A Trump voter\u2019s message to retailers: \u2018Keep your mouths shut about our president\u2019 <\/a>]<\/i><\/p>\n

The same industry, of course, also makes many of\u00a0the hundreds of millions of guns<\/a>\u00a0believed to be in the country. So the most ambitious gun-control advocates would love to cut off that financial backing.<\/p>\n

The Parkland shooting and its negative publicity caused the investment giant BlackRock\u00a0to explore ways of letting its clients disinvest from gun companies, Bloomberg News reported<\/a>. Teachers in Florida are pressuring their pension fund managers to do the same. But gun industry\u00a0stocks are widely held. CNBC reported<\/a>\u00a0this week that some of Wall Street\u2019s largest exchange-traded funds include holdings in several gunmakers.<\/p>\n

And\u00a0investors may be hesitant to dump gunmakers\u2019 stocks as long as the companies remain lucrative.<\/p>\n

New York Times financial columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, five days after the Parkland shooting, made a proposal:<\/a>\u00a0Banks and credit companies\u00a0could\u00a0effectively ban assault weapons right now, simply by prohibiting customers from using their services to buy them.<\/p>\n

Financial\u00a0companies ban the purchase of products like cryptocurrency with\u00a0credit cards,\u00a0Sorkin wrote, and some executives were considering\u00a0policies that would lead \u201cassault weapons\u00a0[to] be eliminated from virtually every firearms store in America because otherwise the sellers would be cut off from the credit card systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gunmakers also use credit to make purchases, so banks could throttle them from the supply side, as well.\u00a0Whether banks would do this, however, is in question. In 2012, Snopes investigated a report that Bank of America was cutting off credit lines to gun manufacturers.\u00a0A spokeswoman for the bank denied the report<\/a>, saying it had no policies against doing business with the firearms industry and pointing to a $250 million deal with a gunmaker that same month.<\/p>\n

Six years later,\u00a0amid the growing outrage\u00a0from the Stoneman Douglas massacre,\u00a0the bank\u00a0sounds very different.<\/p>\n

Axios reported<\/a>\u00a0on Saturday that\u00a0Bank of America was \u201creexamining\u201d its\u00a0relationship with AR-15 rifle manufacturers who\u00a0do business with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are joining other companies in our industry to examine what we can do to help end the tragedy of mass shootings,\u201d Bank of America\u00a0said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Correction:\u00a0<\/em>An earlier version of this story included AT&T among those streaming an NRA video channel. It does not stream the channel.<\/p>\n

This story has been updated. Fred Barbash, Lindsey Bever, T.J. Ortenzi, Keith McMillan,\u00a0Desikan Thirunarayanapuram\u00a0and Steven Zeitchik contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Avi Selk, February 24, 2018 The National Rifle Association lashed out at corporations rushing to abandon it, as\u00a0companies from United Airlines to\u00a0Best Western have cut ties\u00a0with the gun lobby group under pressure from\u00a0a boycott movement following a Feb. 14 high school shooting. Without\u00a0context, twin announcements from Delta and United airlines on\u00a0Saturday morning might look […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2649"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2650,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649\/revisions\/2650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}