Groupon North America has
from its website, a move NBC notes comes off the heels of
.
That’s led some of the spurned business owners, like Michael Cargill of
to call for boycotts against the website.
It’s another sign that the gun control battle this year is going to be intense and ugly. None of the sides appear to be backing down.
In his
second inaugural address yesterday,
President Barack Obama re-asserted that gun control will be a priority of his second term.
“Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia, to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm,” Obama said.
The NRA, for its part, has made clear that it will fight the Obama administration’s plans this year, and bragged recently that
250,000 new members signed up since Newtown
.
As the gun control battle escalates, partisans on both sides are calling for economic boycotts.
Tom Ward at Well Regulated American Militias recently published a long blurb last week calling on his fellow Second Amendment advocates
to boycott businesses that donated to pro-gun control politicians.
The blog is headlined: “We can do something now… Hit them where it hurts, the wallet.”
He calls on his neighbors to stop going to
because their parent corporation donated to
, for instance.
Of course, the battle over gun control isn’t merely taking place on the fringes of the Internet.
January 19, the day before Obama was sworn in for the second time, was National Gun Appreciation Day. Larry Ward, the organization’s chairman who
recently said that slavery wouldn’t have happened if black people had guns in those times,
explained the necessity of Gun Appreciation Day in an email.
“Without the ability to challenge them on their home turf, the liberals are going to control the message about guns. They are going to push public opinion to accept their gun control schemes, drowning out arguments about our Constitutional rights and how their plans would do NOTHING to decrease gun crime – but a lot to keep the citizenry in line with the liberal Obama agenda,” Ward wrote.
(
published an amusing and unfortunate list over the weekend of
people killed or injured by guns on Gun Appreciation Day
.)
The political fight over gun control is shaping up to be a bitter one.
But we’re curious to see if these recent developments on the financial side of the gun control battle escalate. Will more businesses follow Groupon’s lead?
