The NY Times’ Julie Creswell has provided the names of two more companies which have decided to play politics
Anti-Gun Movement Is Infecting an Outdoor Brand’s Other Products
The national debate over gun control is now sweeping up bike helmets and water bottles.
REI and Mountain Equipment Co-op, two outdoor retail chains that are also customer cooperatives, said Thursday they were suspending orders for popular items like Bell bicycle helmets and CamelBak water bottles from the company that owns the brands, Vista Outdoor, because Vista also makes assault-style rifles.
Vista actually makes a wide variety of products, which includes scary looking rifles and non-scary looking rifles. But, hey, they want to virtue signal, which, they are allowed to do in a free market
Leftists….
"Google's a private company, it can ban who it likes on YouTube."
Also leftists….
Private companies who refuse to bake gay wedding cakes should be publicly shamed, fined & put out of business.
????
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) March 1, 2018
Huh.
The wave of responses started with a number of companies cutting tieslate last week to the National Rifle Association, and gained momentum when Dick’s Sporting Goods, Walmart and Kroger announced changes to their gun policies, including halting the sale of firearms to customers under the age of 21. Late Thursday, L.L. Bean joined its retail counterparts, also announcing a minimum age of 21 to purchase weapons or ammunition in its flagship store in Freeport, Me., the only one where it sells firearms.
A lot of this is disingenuous, as many were barely selling “assault rifles” in the first place. I really don’t have a problem with them changing the age to 21.
But, it’s cool about denying cakes and flowers now, right?
On social media, some argued that boycotting brands like CamelBak and Giro would only hurt people making quality products. Others chided REI for what they saw as mixing business with politics.
Liberal gun grabbers (and they do want to ban guns big time) never really consider that they’re actually hurting real people with their bans. And it can often end poorly for the companies. Look at Delta, which virtue signaled while ending the discount for NRA members. They’d only given out 13 discounts in total. But they tried saying they support the 2nd Amendment, their CEO tweeted out, Georgia pulled their tax breaks (which, hilariously, Democrats started defending the tax break, calling pulling it unconstitutional), and Delta is losing lots of customers who’ll simply fly other carriers.
There are so many choices where to buy things these days that making these kinds of radical decisions seems like business suicide, but that’s their right. I try to one-stop shop at Dicks because I’m lazy, but I’ll stop giving them my business (already called and canceled my credit card from Dicks). No biggie, they won’t miss my business, and I’ll just have to hit a few more places when I’m getting stuff we want or need. Getting rid of Bell and Camelbak sounds like a real bad move for REI.