Survivors of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, have been pressuring big corporations to cut their ties with the National Rifle Assocation.
Companies are cutting ties with the NRA after the Parkland mass shooting
Enterprise, the First National Bank of Omaha, Symantec, and SimpliSafe have ended partnerships with the organization.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
And several have. They include Enterprise Holdings Inc. — which operates Enterprise, Alamo, and National Car Rental — as well as First National Bank of Omaha, Symantec security software, and home security company SimpliSafe.
Names of companies with NRA associations had begun circulating widely Thursday under the hashtag #BoycottNRA.
Like other organizations that charge a yearly membership fee, the lobby relies on perks to entice potential members. The NRA “member benefits” page offers savings on a credit card, hearing aids, life insurance, home security systems, car purchases, moving fees, prescription drugs, and branded checkbooks, among other things.
For more than a decade, the First National Bank of Omaha — one of the nation’s largest privately owned banks — had issued what its ads described as the “Official Credit Card of the NRA,” according to the Omaha World-Herald. The Visa card offered 5 percent back on gas and sporting goods store purchases and a $40 bonus card.
But in a tweet Thursday saying that “customer feedback has caused us to review our relationship with the NRA,” the bank announced it was stopping the program.
A few hours later, Enterprise made a similar announcement, saying they would be ending the program as of March 26.
“All three of our brands have ended the discount for NRA members,” said a tweet on the Enterprise Rent-A-Car account.
Enterprise, Alamo, and National Car Rentals all provided discounts to NRA members once they paid their $40 annual membership fee. The companies were among the 22 corporations offering discounts and “five star savings” to the gun lobby’s members, as detailed on the NRA’s “member benefits” page.
On Friday, Symantec — the parent company of Norton and LifeLock — announced via Twitter that it will no longer offer discounts on its products for NRA members, following a massive public push for them to end the relationship. “Symantec has stopped its discount program with the National Rifle Association,” the Tweet read.
SimpliSafe, which gives NRA members two months of free monitoring with a purchase of any new home security system, soon followed suit, informing ThinkProgress of its decision to end the program in an email.
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