The fallout over this week's shooting rampage at a Florida high school started to take its toll on National Rifle Association's roster of corporate partners as a growing number of companies severed marketing ties with the gun advocacy organisation.
The exodus of corporate names, ranging from a major insurer to car rental brands and a household moving company, occurred after the NRA launched a counter-offensive against a student-led campaign for tighter US gun ownership laws.
The corporate defections include Hertz Corp, three rental car brands owned by Enterprise Holdings Inc, the First National Bank of Omaha and Delta Airlines among several others.
Delta is reaching out to the NRA to let them know we will be ending their contract for discounted rates through our group travel program. We will be requesting that the NRA remove our information from their website.
— Delta (@Delta) February 24, 2018
At the same time, gun control activists are stepping up pressure on Amazon.com Inc and other online streaming platforms to drop the online video channel NRATV, featuring gun-friendly programming produced by the NRA.
The issue of gun control, and the NRA's role in opposing it, became the focus of renewed national debate on 14 February, when a former student killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, with an AR-15 assault rifle he had purchased legally.
Read more:
- NRA chief slams anti-gun 'elites' following Florida school shooting
- 17 people killed in Florida high school shooting
- Trump says arming teachers could prevent school massacres
The US Constitution's Second Amendment protects the right of Americans to bear arms.
The NRA, which has long used campaign donations and effective lobbying to command political influence, argues that stricter gun control would erode individual rights.
The group has not commented on companies cutting ties.
Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, founded after 20 first-graders were shot and killed at a Connecticut school in 2012, sent letters to Apple Inc, AT&T Inc, Amazon, Alphabet Inc's Google and Roku Inc yesterday, asking them to drop NRATV from their platforms.
"We have been just disgusted by NRATV since its beginning," Shannon Watts, founder of the Moms Demand Action group, said.
"It tries to pit Americans against one another, all in an attempt to further their agenda of selling guns."
United is notifying the NRA that we will no longer offer a discounted rate to their annual meeting and we are asking that the NRA remove our information from their website.
— United Airlines (@united) February 24, 2018
Angry student survivors of the shooting have confronted politicians from state lawmakers to US President Donald Trump himself, demanding stricter gun control laws.
In response, the NRA and Mr Trump have suggested arming teachers who have received training to deter attackers, a proposal that has been met with scepticism by teachers unions and gun violence experts.
Students have taken to social media to urge peers to hold a National School Walkout on 14 March and converge on Washington ten days later for a protest called 'March For Our Lives'.
The teenage activists themselves are collecting millions of dollars from celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and George Clooney, receiving pro-bono advertising from people in Hollywood and organisational know-how from groups including the Women's March.
