Analysis Of The Brady Campaign’s Strategy Concerning The Private Sector And Guns
BY Herschel Smith
6 years, 6 months ago
We’ve been addressing the issue of a new front in the war on guns, specifically as it relates both to gun manufacturers being squeezed by banks and shareholder actions concerning gun companies. It’s tempting to see this as a spurious set of events. The anti-gun lobby sees something that happens to garner attention, and decides to do it again to see if it garners the same attention or effect.
It’s not spurious. This is all part of a coordinated strategy within the gun controller community. The Brady Campaign lays it out for us.
As companies have taken positions on climate change, anti-discrimination, anti-harassment, family leave, and other socially responsible causes, it has helped to both place these issues in the forefront of the media and pressure other public and private industry members to adopt the same policies. In recent months, corporate attention has turned to America’s gun violence problem as a recognized public health epidemic that kills 96 Americans and injures another 200 or more each day.
[ … ]
An increasing amount of business leaders, investors, and corporate board members are not only cognizant of the toll of gun violence, but are also determined to lead by example. Dick’s Sporting Goods, Citigroup, Bank of America, Kroger’s, and L.L. Bean, among others, have announced policies that address this uniquely American problem.
Here we see corporations not as products of hard work, innovation, or even skilled workers who need to earn a living by the sweat of their brow. Corporations are tools and agents of social change, regardless of what it does to the company itself or the value built by hard work over time. Companies approached by the gun controllers should heed this warning. The Brady Campaign has told you in no uncertain terms that they don’t care about the health of your company – the only value you add is your assets to be used for the purposes outlined by the controllers.
Aurora. Sandy Hook. San Bernardino. Pulse. Sutherland Springs. Las Vegas. Parkland. For how different these mass shootings were, they all have one thing in common: the shooters chose assault weapons. Shooters are purposefully outfitting themselves with the latest and best military-grade weapons and accessories …
Of course, this was all written prior to the recent shooting in Texas where the shooter used a shotgun and wheel gun, but that won’t change a thing concerning their strategy. After mentioning Dick’s Sporting Goods, The Brady Campaign outlines some of their recent successes.
Walmart, another major gun retailer, ended its sale of assault rifles in mid-2015, citing low customer demand for weapons of this nature at their stores. Likewise, REI has suspended orders of certain products where the manufacturer is affiliated with a company making assault rifles.
And it’s not just retailers that are making significant changes to their policies on assault weapons. In the aftermath of the Parkland shooting. Bank of America announced it had engaged in “intense conversations” with gun manufacturers, and determined it would cease lending to any companies that make assault weapons for civilian purposes. Additionally, payment processing companies facilitating transactions like PayPal, Square, Stripe, and Apple Pay have all pledged to disallow their services for any firearm sales.
They also mention Blackrock, Citigroup, Fred Meyer, LL Bean, Kroger and other stores who have implemented what they call “gun reform” policies concerning who they do business with.
They go on to outline their proposals for “gun reform,” including [a] a renewed assault weapons ban, [b] an increase in the legal age for purchasing guns, [c] universal background checks, [d] “securing the supply chain,” and [e] advocating publicity for legal “reform.”
They don’t stop there. They advocate the power of shareholder participation in corporations as well as legal pressure to force gun manufacturers and FFLs to conduct reporting on their political lobbying, their investments in so-called “smart gun technology,” and amusingly, this: “Report on their factual basis for advertisements that suggest guns are effective for personal protection compared to risks associated with gun ownership.”
If it’s easy to see the recent actions by Sturm & Ruger shareholders and Bank of America as spurious, it’s also easy to be dismissive about these efforts. But make no mistake, these efforts are well funded, and moreover, the controllers have a nexus in the leadership of corporations. Much of the upper level management, as well as HR and legal departments, has been steeped in collectivist ideology for their entire educational career. Their world and life view are similar, if not the same.
It’s also easy to respond that “we can buy stock too,” as well as to claim that we or gun manufacturers can function in a bank-less society. As to those claims, concerning buying stock too, it’s one thing to make boasts, and another to spend the money. As to the ability to function in a bank-less society, it isn’t readily apparent what form this would take or how it would work.
If more odious gun laws are a direct frontal assault on God-given rights to firearms ownership, this whole effort is a well-coordinated, well-rehearsed, determined and organized enfilade assault. This is a flaking maneuver, and it’s not apparent that gun owners or even gun manufacturers see this assault or are prepared to defend against it.
Sun Tzu recommended that in war, we “know our enemies.” Listening to them when they divulge their strategy is certainly part of this.
Prior:
Henry Repeating Arms On Dick’s Sporting Goods
Analysis Of Ruger Shareholder Vote
The Next Installment Of The War Between Amalgamated Bank And Ruger
Amalgamated Bank Pressures Ruger To Support Gun Control Measures
Please, Please Buy This Gun Company
Bank Of America Simply Hasn’t Shown Enough Contrition For The Gun Controllers Yet
On May 21, 2018 at 10:51 am, Gryphon said:
Captain – Something that I Haven’t (yet) read anyone pointing out – First, the (((bolsheviks))) in the False-Corporate ‘government’ know, on an Instinctive Level (like all Vermin does) that if they Lose Control, even slightly, of those who they try to Parasite off of, they will be Crushed. This is at the Root of All Efforts to Remove the Means of Self-Defense from the People.
Second, the ‘government’ has been Failing (or at least, falling behind schedule) to accomplish this Goal, the Corporations, particularly the (((banks))) are beginning to feel Fear, as (((they))) are being Revealed as parasites, too. This, I believe, is what caused the sudden “Corporate” concern for Disarmament – the (((banks))) that Own the .gov and ‘elected’ officers Know that they’re Next, should .gov Lose Power and Legitimacy over the People.
Remember, the “UNITED STATES CORPORATION” is Twenty Trillion (((dollars))) in Debt to the (((banks))). The Debtor is the Slave to the Lender, always, and this is at the Root of why we see ‘elected officials’ acting NOT in the Interests of the People and the Nation. They Can’t, they are OWNED.
I really rather Expect that corporations (meaning banks) will exert a Lot more Leverage against Gun Owners than most People will Expect – control of “Credit” will be the Means they Use. Want to ‘borrow money’ (Pay Usury) for a House, Car, etc? (((they))) will make you Forfeit your Rights to own Guns, and it will be “legal” since You Signed a CONTRACT agreeing to this.
All the more reason to get Off (((their))) Grid.
On May 21, 2018 at 10:54 am, BRVTVS said:
Another example (thanks to Codrea): https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-gun-boycott-lockton/insurer-lockton-will-no-longer-sell-nra-endorsed-policies-idUSKCN1GB06O
On May 21, 2018 at 10:55 am, Herschel Smith said:
@Gryphon,
“I really rather Expect that corporations (meaning banks) will exert a Lot more Leverage against Gun Owners than most People will Expect …”
In all sorts of way, not the least of which is a concerted effort against gun makers.
I suspect they will be able to do what law-makers cannot.
On May 21, 2018 at 11:27 am, moe mensale said:
“If more odious gun laws are a direct frontal assault on God-given rights to firearms ownership, this whole effort is a well-coordinated, well-rehearsed, determined and organized enfilade assault. This is a flaking maneuver, and it’s not apparent that gun owners or even gun manufacturers see this assault or are prepared to defend against it.”
@Herschel,
Somehow I find it improbable that the gun manufacturers and the NSSF, with their high powered lawyers, don’t see this as a violation of our restraint of trade laws under 15 USC Chapter 1.
On May 21, 2018 at 3:53 pm, Mack said:
From now on, I refer to the enemy as Totalitarians.
That’s what they are.
Not liberals or Progressives, even.
On May 25, 2018 at 5:12 am, Joshua Smith said:
Emphasis mine. Succinct truth cuts deep.
Classic Herschel.
On May 31, 2018 at 1:27 pm, Sean said:
All these maneuverings by the left will probably not get them EVERYTHING they want, but enough to cripple the gun culture, and that includes manufacturers. Because the left has a propensity for bully violence when and where ever the think they can get away with it, they will escalate that violence, both tipping their hand, and over reaching as leftists always do. Think of them as a kind of vulture of opportunity. Their intended meal/feast is not quite dead yet, but vultures have been know to start picking at live animals they believed couldn’t stop them from it. They always victimize the weak, old, and helpless. When you see the ugly-ass vultures on the ground all around you, you know who is on the menu. And the left most importantly uses fear as a weapon to freeze most of the population, and keep them from taking any action.
On June 1, 2018 at 10:14 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
@ Herschel
Re: “Here we see corporations not as products of hard work, innovation, or even skilled workers who need to earn a living by the sweat of their brow. Corporations are tools and agents of social change, regardless of what it does to the company itself or the value built by hard work over time.”
The dominant political and social ideology in today’s western world is Cultural Marxism, and one of the core tenets of Marxist-Leninism and communism is that the state and the party hold an absolute monopoly on the use of force.
The most-powerful communist tyrants of the 20th century, men like Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong, affirmed this core belief in their statements at various times, including:
“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” – Mao Zedong
“Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?” – Josef Stalin
Re: “Companies approached by the gun controllers should heed this warning. The Brady Campaign has told you in no uncertain terms that they don’t care about the health of your company – the only value you add is your assets to be used for the purposes outlined by the controllers.”
The Brady Campaign ought to be considered as an arm of the deep-state, and not simply as an independent non-profit organization – for it functions as an appendage of the deep-state and powers-that-be. We see again the centrality of the state and party to the ideology of our adversaries, the notion that human beings and the things that they create exist for no valid purpose apart from what they offer to the state/party apparatus.
In this, the communists are not all that different from the fascists. Benito Mussolini, the founder of modern (20th-century) fascism, said:
“All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state”
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”
Some historians and scholars believe that fascism died with the end of the Second World War, but if we apply Mussolini’s definition to the public-private leviathan in this country, we find that it fits very closely. In particular, the obliteration of the line between the public and private sectors.
It is germane to note that one of the biggest historical lies of the latter half of the twentieth century was the notion that communism and fascism were polar opposites, ideologies which lay at opposite ends of the political spectrum. This is a lie of the highest order, one masterfully debunked by Dinesh D’Souza in his new book, “The Big Lie.”
After the Second World War ended, and as the Cold War ramped up, the very last thing communist sympathizers in the West wanted was for people to make the connection between communism and fascism as ideological neighbors. Thus began a half-century long effort to purge or marginalize the historical record of any evidence which pointed to this conclusion.
All of the top fascists viewed fascism as the ultimate evolution or iteration of communism, of Marxist-Leninism.
If one plots political ideologies on a gradient or line, with complete collectivism and government control on the left-most extreme, and the complete absence of it on the right-most extreme, one finds that classical fascism, Nazism (national socialism), and communism are closely-related ideologically and are, in fact, neighbors on the far-left of the political spectrum.
To repeat – fascism is a form of leftist collectivism; it is not a phenomenon of the political right.
All forms of collectivist tyranny are evil and must opposed, whether termed communism, fascism, Nazism, Cultural Marxism, or Islam.
The Left should not be taken lightly, especially since they have joined forces in the so-called “Red-Green alliance” – the Reds being the communists and Cultural Marxists, the Greens being the Muslims. Between the two of them, these ideologies have a great deal of innocent blood on their hands.