LOVE TO PACK HEAT
Deaf to cries for NRA boycott shipping big lavishes deals on gun nuts
OVERNIGHT SHIPPING giant FedEx ignored calls Saturday to break ties with the National Rifle Association as pressure built for companies to boycott the gun group in the aftermath of a Florida high school shooting that left 17 people dead.
The Tennessee-based company, which did not respond to calls for comment, snubbed a barrage of social media posts from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students, celebrities and regular people around the country ratcheting up the political pressure on companies that work with the NRA.
“@FedEx Just remember, you guys aren’t the only shipping gig in town. So you should think about cutting ties with the @NRA, otherwise; several of us who use you guys can and will make sure our business goes elsewhere. #BoycottNRA,” California father, Bill Singleton, tweeted.
In Harlem, the Rev. Al Sharpton, whose followers will be joining the March for Our Lives protest against gun violence on March 24, told consumers to buy with their conscience.
“We need to target those companies that have not pulled back,” Sharpton said at a National Action Network gathering on Saturday. “You better not spend a dime with the NRA or we won’t spend a dime with you.”
Actress Alyssa Milano, morning talk show host Mika Brezezinski, and Florida high school shooting survivor David Hogg also joined the rising choir calling for companies to split with the gun lobby.
Despite the direct pleas, FedEx and a handful of smaller companies, like Hotel Planner, Viness wines and Life Line Screening have stuck with the NRA.
The mega-shipper’s main link to the group is through the NRA Business Alliance which offers members up to 26% discounts on their package costs.
But most of the major corporations decided to go the other way, ending their association with the NRA.
Delta and United Airlines, the country’s top airlines, announced Saturday that members of the gun group will no longer
get discounted tickets.
First National Bank of Omaha announced this week it would not renew its contract for the NRA Visa card.
“Customer feedback has caused us to review our relationship with the NRA,” First National spokesman Kevin Langin said.
Enterprise rental company and its subsidiaries, Alamo and National, said that the gun group’s members would no longer get price breaks as of March 26. Hertz rental car company also put the brakes on NRA member cost cuts. MetLife and Chubb insurance companies followed suit, ending special NRA policies.
Hotel chains Best Western and Wyndham, and Symantec Corp., which makes Norton Antivirus software, also stopped offering deals to the gun association’s members.
The NRA lashed out at companies that caved to public pressure.
“Some corporations have decided to punish NRA membership in a shameful display of political and civic cowardice,” spokeswoman Jennifer Baker said.
Calls for a boycott unfairly punishes the group’s 5 million “members who are doctors, farmers, law enforcement officers, fire fighters, nurses, shop owners and school teachers that live in every American community,” according to Baker.
She explained that the NRA had “nothing at all to do with the failure of the school’s security preparedness.”
Nevertheless, the group was defiant in the face of calls for greater gun control.
“Let it be absolutely clear. The 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,” the association said.
“In time, these brands will be replaced by others who recognize that patriotism and determined commitment to constitutional freedoms are characteristics of a marketplace they very much want to serve,” the group said.
Business and corporate ethics professor at the University of Texas, Timothy Werner, said boycotts rarely harm companies financially, but firms must weigh the social implications of their association with the NRA.
“Somebody is going to be mad at them no matter what they do,” he said. “They can’t come out on top so they are mitigating the damage.”
Werner said that he was impressed with the speed of the boycott effort.
“The pace of it is surprising,” he said. “The speed with which firms are withdrawing (is a) reflection of our changing times, because of social media.”