Money bigs take fire

ANTI-GUN demonstrators took aim at BlackRock Wednesday, rallying outside the private equity giant’s shareholder meeting in protest of its ties to one of the nation’s largest firearms makers.

The roughly 50 gun control supporters blasted BlackRock and its CEO Larry Fink for pouring money into Sturm Ruger amid the country’s spate of mass school shootings.

“We’re here to send a message that BlackRock investors and big Wall Street investors are propping up the NRA, and therefore the death of kids across the country,” said Jonathan Westin, director of the nonprofit New York Communities for Change, said at the rally outside the Lotte New York Palace Hotel on Madison Ave.

“Larry Fink likes to pretend he’s a responsible investor when in reality he’s just as responsible for the deaths of these kids,” Westin added.

BlackRock, which is Sturm Ruger’s largest investor, has come under fire in recent months by activists claiming its pursuit of profits comes at the expense of gun violence victims.

Texas mass murderer Devin Kelly used one of Ruger’s AR-15-style assault rifles to kill 26 people and wound 20 more at a Sutherland Springs church last November.

“I don’t know if this situation will ever change because these investors make so much money off this industry,” said protester Andrew Ryan, 65, of Hastings-on-Hudson, Westchester County.

“But we have to try. We have to do something.”

A BlackRock spokesman declined to address the protest directly but pointed to a pair of bulletins released in recent months.

In an April memo, the firm announced that it will offer a new line of funds that exclude companies that make or sell guns.