If politicians won’t confront the gun rights lobby, some conclude, corporations should do it through the private market. After the Florida shooting, gun control advocates have relaunched the #BoycottNRA movement, calling on companies to embargo the group and even urging banks to stop issuing credit for certain gun purchases.
Sure, people may have a legal right to buy a gun, but that doesn’t mean Citibank has to process such a purchase. If the corporation wants to take a moral stance against the sale of AR-15s, and the shareholders don’t want to be complicit in this commerce, that’s their business, right?
This logic may sound familiar if you’ve followed the cases of cake bakers, wedding photographers, or florists. Does a business have conscience rights?
In the gun debate, many businesses are acting on their conscience rights. Before the boycott, all five million members of the NRA could expect some sort of discount when booking a hotel room, catching a flight, or renting a car from companies like Best Western, United Airlines, and Hertz. Under viral pressure, though, those perks are quickly disappearing.
Some want to go after sales altogether, like Andrew Ross Sorkin, who outlined in a recent New York Times piece how banks and credit card companies could refuse to fund gun purchases.
To be clear, all of this is perfectly legal. From ApplePay to PayPal, plenty of companies already refuse to be party to the sale of firearms. And just like the cake baker who refuses to cater a gay wedding, these companies are exercising their right not to engage in an activity that runs counter to their values.
But here a distinction between discrimination and participation is important. The corporation that won’t cut a deal with the NRA or facilitate a gun purchase, and the baker who bows out of catering a gay wedding aren’t discriminating against a class of people. They’re just refusing to participate in a particular act. At the same time, it would be illegal and wrong for either business to refuse to rent a car or sell a cupcake to a customer simply because that customer was gay, a gun owner, or both.
When companies begin tracking political trends with market signals, they incur a certain amount of risk, of course. A good business plan is built on solid practices, not shifting social outrage. When United Airlines decides to end perks for NRA members, they run the risk of alienating those once-loyal customers. Turns out, virtue signaling comes with certain costs.
Consumers on both sides of the issue are already drawing battle lines on social media promising to frequent or boycott certain companies. For better or worse, they’re voting with their wallets, and it isn’t going to stop anytime soon.
Anyone cheering the current politicization of commerce needs to realize that they can’t pick and choose issues. The Left can’t cheer corporations as progressive for refusing to do certain kinds of business with gun owners, then condemn bakers as bigots for declining to bake a wedding cake.
