Business In Society
SHARE BUSINESS IN SOCIETY
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn

Business in Society Blog

Gun controls: Trump, Congress punt; business steps up to help protect students, others

 

Status of U.S. gun controls this Friday morning:

The president has met with National Rifle Association leaders and they agree “it was a good meeting.”

The Senate majority leader outrageously says that he has no intention of bringing a gun measure to the floor.

More companies invoke corporate social responsibility values and policies to offset shameful government inertia.

Even as brave, articulate students in Florida and across the country and their supporters continue to marshal resistance to assault rifle violence, a new — perhaps, crucial — ally has joined their cause – more major companies applying corporate social responsibility values and policies on gun controls US Companies take a stand, raise age to purchasing guns .

The significance here is that actions in the guns/assault rifle supply chain, such as those taken by Dick’s, Walmart, Kroger and L.L. Bean to restrict such sales — go to the soft-underbelly of the NRA community. When assault rifle/ammunition manufacturers lose major sales at enough key customer outlets their income declines precipitously. Their ability to remain mainstay NRA financial supporters is shaken. Of course, this, and similar company CSR decisions, must be replicated and sustained if the NRA and its power over the Republican-controlled Congress is to be weakened.

http://reut.rs/2oMQ3Iz

At the same time, responsible gun owners within NRA membership now have a new opportunity to influence its policies, articulating their rationale for wanting to be dis-associated from supporters of minimally-regulated sale of military style assault weaponry.

Significant as it is, especially to protect students, the gun-control issue may have even broader ramifications, as examined in this morning’s David Brooks’ New York Times column in which he asserts that, “The gun issue may be the final battle” in America’s current cultural war

Opinion How Progressives Win the Culture War  

“I have to admit that something big is going on … It could be that you can win more important victories through an aggressive cultural crusade than you can though legislation. Progressives could be on the verge of delegitimizing their foes on guns, but also much else, rendering them untouchable for anybody who wants to stay in polite society.”

That means all thinking and caring Americans.