More companies ending ties with NRA as pressure mounts
NEW YORK — Three more companies said Friday they had ended discount programs with the National Rifle Association, as U.S. corporations take a closer look at investments, co-branding deals and other ties to the gun industry after the latest school massacre.
Petitions are circulating online targeting companies that offer discounts to NRA members on its website. #BoycottNRA has trended on Twitter.
Members of the NRA have access to special offers from partner companies on its website, ranging from life insurance to wine clubs. For a second consecutive day, companies listed on the site have cut ties to the group as it aggressively resists calls for stricter gun control in the wake of the mass shooting last week at a Florida high school that left 17 dead.
The insurance company MetLife Inc. discontinued its discount program with the NRA on Friday. The car rental company Hertz and Symantec Corp., the software company that makes Norton Antivirus technology, did the same.
Insurer Chubb Ltd. said Friday it is ending participation in the NRA’s gunowner insurance program, but it provided notice three months ago. The program that provided coverage for people involved in gun-related incidents or accidents had been under scrutiny by regulators over marketing issues.
Those defections arrived a day after car rental company Enterprise Holdings, which also owns Alamo and National, said it was cutting off discounts for NRA members.
First National Bank of Omaha, one of the nation’s largest privately held banks, announced that it would not renew a cobranded Visa credit-card with the NRA.
Other companies, including Wyndham Hotels and Best Western hotels, have let social media users know they are no longer affiliated with the NRA, though they did not make clear when the partnerships ended.
The swiftness of the corporate reaction against the NRA has differed from that of past shootings, including the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre that claimed 26 lives and the killing of 58 people in Las Vegas last fall, said Bob Spitzer, a political scientist at SUNY Cortland and a scholar on gun politics. Spitzer said the reaction was likely a reaction to the student mobilization that followed the Florida shooting, but he said it was too soon tell how significantly it will sway the country’s wider gun debate
“If this is as far as it goes, it probably won’t have any measurable effect. If other companies continue to (cut ties) it can start to have an adverse public relations effect,” Spitzer said. “Usually what happens is that the storm passes, and the NRA counts on that.”
Larry Hutcher, an attorney who specializes in commercial law and litigation, said companies are reacting to a perception that public opinion is shifting on gun regulation. Polls show growing support for gun control measures, including 97 percent backing for universal background checks in a Quinnipiac University survey released Tuesday.
“It’s based on the fact that these companies and their marketing officers are reading the tea leaves. It makes economic sense to get on the side of the majority of Americans,” said Hutcher, co-managing partner of Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP.