Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida. /Katherine Welles/Shutterstock.com5 Companies That Have Entered the Firearms Debate
This week, Shopify joined a growing group of companies that have come out with new policies and strong statements in response to the ongoing debate over guns.
August 16, 2018 at 03:34 PM
3 minute read
On Wednesday, the popular e-commerce platform Shopify announced that it will no longer allow merchants to sell certain firearms and parts for those weapons.
According to The Seattle Times, Ottawa, Canada-based Shopify, which is used by more than 600,000 businesses globally, will no longer permit the sale of items including automatic weapons and silencers used with semi-automatic weapons.
Shopify is not the first company to make news for getting political about the ongoing gun debate. In the past year, an increasing number of companies have taken actions such as restricting discounts for National Rifle Association members and tightening controls around gun sales.
Though it's not clear how heavily legal departments have been involved in these specific decisions, there's little doubt that GCs everywhere have responsibility for a company's public positions, and that they often get a direct say (or get to be the speaker) when these companies get political.
Aside from Shopify, here are five other companies that made big statements or policy changes because of the gun debate.
- Dick's Sporting Goods: Following the realization that the company sold a shotgun to the perpetrator of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, the retailer, whose legal department is led by John Hayes, announced in February that it would no longer sell “assault style rifles.” It also stopped selling firearms or ammunition to anyone under 21 years old.
- Walmart Inc.: After the Parkland shooting, Walmart also announced some changes. Like Dick's Sporting Goods, it raised the age of buying ammunition to 21. At the time, the company reiterated that back in 2015 it had stopped selling “modern sporting rifles” including the AR-15. Walmart's legal team is led by Karen Roberts.
- Bank of America Corp.: In April, Bank of America said that it will stop giving loans to manufacturers of “military-style firearms” that are sold for civilian use, according to The Washington Post. Vice chairwoman of the bank, Anne M. Finucane, made the announcement during a television interview. BOA's legal team is led by David G. Leitch.
- United Airlines Inc: In a tweet in February, the airline announced that it would no longer honor discounts to NRA members around the group's annual meeting. The announcement by the company, which counts Brett Hart as head of its legal department, was met with particular ire from NRA members. During a Q&A with CEO Oscar Munoz, an NRA member suggested the CEO and company were “virtue signaling,” though Munoz responded that the decision was personal and not political for the company.
- FedEx: Despite gun-control activists' threats to boycott the shipping company, FedEx said it will still honor NRA discounts following the Parkland shooting. It said that to remove those discounts would be to discriminate a group of people. However, in the same statement, the company said it disagrees with the NRA and does not believe that assault rifles should be in the hands of civilians. The legal team at FedEx is led by Mark Allen.
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