Opinion
USA – -(Ammoland.com)- In the aftermath of the Stoneman Douglas Mass Shooting, several corporate entities, unnecessarily fearful of, and bowing to the pressure of gun control groups, have enacted numerous different policies promoting to gun control.
Dicks Sporting Goods was the first, creating a firestorm when they announced publicly that they were pulling so-called “assault weapons” from the shelves of their Field & Stream Stores, ceasing sales of “hi-capacity magazines” and other accessories and raising the age to purchase ALL firearms to 21. Walmart Corp quickly followed suit, and both companies are currently facing lawsuits as a result.
Then came the withdrawal of numerous companies from the NRA Member Discount Benefit Program. The impact here is somewhat unclear. Many NRA members didn’t use the available discounts at all and they universally stated on social media that those discounts were hardly a deciding factor in why they joined or remained NRA Members. What’s more clear is this Anti Gun/SJW driven boycott sparked a massive increase in donations to the NRA and increases in membership, including from people overseas, such as in Australia. People were joining the NRA for the first time, in a show of solidarity and support for an organization wrongly being blamed for the acts of a madman.
More recently, Citi Bank and Bank of America have jumped on the anti-rights, “assault weapons” ban demands of gun ban groups, their supporters, and the media. To the enthusiastic cheers and support of those same twisted groups.
Funny thing, Progressives normally vociferously decry “corporate activism”. Recall the outraged screams of the Left when Hobby Lobby refused to pay for birth control for their employees due to the personal beliefs of their Founder? And that was a policy that only affected employees, and no one else ! Or how the Left has actively and viciously attacked Chick-fil-A for years because of the Christian beliefs of their founder? To the point that the NYC Mayors Office actively worked to prevent the company from opening there?
They are still trying to get the now nearly 10-year-old Citizens United Supreme Court decision overturned. But when it comes to the Second Amendment, anti-gun progressives can’t seem to cheer loud enough for this corporate activism, or more accurately, corporate tyranny. Of course, if the left didn’t have an almost unbelievable level of hypocrisy, they wouldn’t have much of anything.
While gun-control groups and their supporters are giddy with excitement over these recent “victories” they actually shouldn’t be. And here’s why.
It is incredibly dangerous. Its one thing to have individuals, or in the case of Citizens United, even companies make donations to legislators or to hire lobbyists to pursue their agenda. But at least we know about it, it is out in the open, we can see it happening, there’s a level of transparency and the people still maintain the ability to thwart these efforts at the ballot box if they don’t agree.
Its a totally different story when mega companies, either via pressure from social groups or due to the ideology of their Board Members or CEO’s, take it upon themselves to mete out “punishment” for not submitting to their particular orthodoxy or ideology. The Left doesn’t seem to have considered the potential for having this enormous power used against them and the things they care about.
These recent developments should be terrifying to us all. What happens when Company XYZ decides you can’t get a car loan, mortgage or credit card because you don’t agree with their philosophy or even refuse to submit to it? Is it not a form of tyranny when the level and extent to which we are able to exercise our rights is curtailed and dictated to us by the whims of companies?
This trend needs to be stopped and stopped quickly before it becomes accepted practice, or we will rapidly discover that “buying Congress” with donations to Legislators re-election campaigns pales in comparison to being forcefully subjected to the vagaries of ideologues that run some of our largest companies.
Who will you turn to for relief? Or to take corrective measures if one day Walmart decides its in their corporate interests to attempt to use blackmail in order to compel behavior? Congress? We’ve already seen how easy it is to take Congress completely out of the equation, substituted by corporatism.
More articles, commentary and information by D. Roberts available at That Every Man Be Armed.com