Boycotts, Social Media & Gun Control

BarryLee · February 23, 2018, 12:25 PM

A couple of yeas ago I expressed concern about social media and how it might ultimately impact the debate on gun control. As I said then many traditional news outlets may support gun control, but still offer at least some information from gun rights advocates. However, social media presents often a very one-sided, limited and often untrue representation of an issue. Social media also moves very rapidly and can place a lot of pressure on individuals, politicians and corporations.

We now see companies like Delta Airlines, Enterprise Car rental. Symantec (Norton), First National of Omaha and Chubb insurance severing ties with the NRA over threats of boycotts being pushed on social media @boycottnra.

Social media often present only a one-sided misinformed caricature of gun owners, but these campaigns tend to carry a lot of power and only add to the ranks of the “useful idiots”.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.eb145a3d91c9

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/23/1...n-nra-discount

https://www.ajc.com/business/delta-e...pvTOlP7eYOHwM/

SIGSHR · February 23, 2018, 02:08 PM

And we can take our dollars elsewhere. And who was it who said her opponents supporters belong in a "basket of delporables". Where is she today ?

Rachen · February 23, 2018, 05:12 PM

I am well aware of the recent abuses of social media platforms to defame and defile certain individuals and groups. All these hashtags, most of which had been started out with good intentions, are now being manipulated in ways that make "Fake News" sound like birds chirping on a summer morning.

BUT, there will be unintended consequences of this abuse of social media. Long before #metoo has turned into a witch hunt and campaign of mass hysteria by certain individuals with grudges or seeking financial gain, I had told a coworker that #metoo is going to blow out of all proportion and instigate an atmosphere of distrust and paranoia which will seep into normal and healthy relationships as well.

And before 2017 even ended, we saw it blow out of control. It all started with a certain South Asian man in NYC whose differing account of a dating encounter led to mass allegations of #metoo being used as a tool of personal vendetta. And pretty soon came the accounts of men refusing to host individual meetings with female business acquaintances, men even hiring chaperones and "guards" to watch over events where both sexes mingle, Corporations requiring males and females to ride in segregated vehicles when on business trips. An entirely new etiquette seemed to be created solely for the purpose of limiting or completely eliminating any contact between the two sexes. There were even stories of male workers in several large companies, including Uber, Google and Yahoo forming special "mutual defense associations" designed to provide each other with legal aid in case of false accusations of sexual misconduct.

NO ONE, and I mean, NO ONE saw all this snowballing. Wasn't #metoo supposed to be a tool of outing all the creeps and miscreants lurking amongst us? It was certainly meant to be used that way, until someone realized they can use it to their own advantage, with potentially illegal gain. Perhaps someone had read Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" and got some ideas? We don't know but it certainly caused a massive influx of unintended consequences.

When I saw this latest news on the #metoo scandal, I had also told my coworker: "Does people know what men in history have done when they feel that their lives and livelihoods are being threatened? We tend to form orders and fraternities for the sole purpose of defense. They were called Templars, Hospitallers, Knights of Malta, and were known by many other names". Apparently we are starting to see the same thing happen all over again with this hashtag nonsense.

So on this topic of social media being used to spread fake news in the interest of demonizing gun owners, this will have it's own unintended consequences. Sure, it may provoke divisions and infighting in the gun owner community. But in the long run, this will cause gun owners to band together and become more of an organized and disciplined force in activism and mutual protection.

Haven't the antigunners always feared, since the late 80s', that the "right wing gun nuts" are going to form "militias"? Their recent social media efforts to portray gun owners as all psychopathic loons may provoke a lot of useful idiots out there to start to attack people that they deem to be "gun nuts" for no reason, and such actions may just cause the "NRA guys" to organize ourselves like a modern day crusader order.

**44 AMP** · February 23, 2018, 05:41 PM

Social media is mob rule. It is the leadership of human lemmings who literally will run off the cliff if the (mostly anonymous) leaders send them that way.

I just saw some blurb about how some company lost a billon+ dollars in stock value, because some starlet tweeted that she no longer used their app.

lemmings.

individually small, and not particularly dangerous, but when a million of them run over your ass, you're pretty well stomped.

Not particularly dangerous to many of us, but if you run a business that depends on general public good will for customers, potentially deadly.

And, it doesn't even matter if you aren't actually doing what ever thing it is they accuse you of, thanks to social media, you're tried in their court of public opinion, convicted by the fact that you were accused, and punished, all in the space the time it takes to type a text. And, its spread all across the entire world, instantly.

Personally, I don't listen to lemmings, but others do, because they do have money, and they can vote. The tyranny of the mob is sill tyranny, and is potentially the greatest threat to free speech and free thought currently existing.

Tyranny by the government is always a threat, but tyranny by social groups who do their best to destroy anyone who disagrees with them is just as real, and might be worse for us, in the long run...

Evan Thomas · February 23, 2018, 09:38 PM

If we can keep this to the influence of social media on the gun control debate, I'll let it run, but this isn't the forum for general rants about everything going to hell in a handbasket.

Keep the discussion focused on gun-related matters, please.

kmw1954 · February 23, 2018, 09:49 PM

I am still in the Dark Ages as I have no social media accounts. None! And I like it that way and do not feel as if I've missed anything.

The closest I have to social media are web forums like this one.

NateKirk · February 23, 2018, 10:05 PM

Quote:

And we can take our dollars elsewhere

The problem is that so can the rest of the country. The use of social media is a concern because gun owners are ultimately in the minority. The latest debate is absolutly perfect for social media, as it has the catchy story of not only young people but the victims leading the charge to further their goals. I really don't know how we can combat the social side; polarization and an unwillingness to hear any arguments has given the firearms community zero social credit.

HiBC · February 23, 2018, 10:49 PM

I think if you take the whole of gun owners and those who support the 2A,we are not the "minority" that we are represented as.
Both parties know its a bad idea to pass us off.

Here is a critical fact to understand. As few as 10 people with the right apps can seem to be 10 million people,or more, on social media.
That fooled folks for a while. Its no secret now.

If Hertz wants to cut ties with the NRA,fine. No gun owner should ever rent a Hertz vehicle again. It might be time to buy stock in Avis.IMO,the NRA should defy the Mayor of Dallas and have the convention.Then dump Dallas.Take the convention elsewhere.Post billboards apologizing to the friends in Dallas.Use social media to turn it back on them.Thar Dem mayor may be replaced by a GOP mayor. Money talks.

The NRA has a network of millions of loyal supporters.And the NRA can easily put a brochure of every business that has cut ties with the NRA in our mailboxes.

The critical step is for us to write letters and cut ties with each of these companies. Tell them why. Encourage friends and family to do the same.

Look around at how much money is invested in marketing and advertising.

It all gets flushed away if you alienate millions of customers.Look what is happening to the NFL. ESPN.We even made changes at S+W.

There will be a lot of CEO changes. Give it time.

And don't doubt our strength. Be part of it. Stand strong.

rickyrick · February 23, 2018, 10:57 PM

First time since 2008, I just sent the nra a chunk of money. Chunk of money by my standards,that is. I also stuffed a bunch of $20s in charity boxes this year.
If anyone hasn’t realized that the big social media platforms are just huge propaganda arms yet... they’re not gonna.

mehavey · February 23, 2018, 11:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 44 AMP

human lemmings who literally will run off the cliff if the (mostly anonymous) leaders send them that way.

To students of history, they were (and are again) called "Useful Idiots"

**Tom Servo** · February 24, 2018, 09:17 AM

Quote:

If Hertz wants to cut ties with the NRA,fine. No gun owner should ever rent a Hertz vehicle again.

I'm a bit confused by all these corporate boycotts. I wasn't under the impression that companies like Hertz or Oil of Olay or any of the others were significant donors in any way. They're withdrawing what, $75/year donations? Well, pack it up boys, we're boned.

It's virtue signaling, just like the vast majority of what we're hearing on social media. The interesting thing is the bubble of confirmation bias that gets created. Clinton wins the 2016 election with a 70, no 80, point margin! Elon Musk is gonna send me to a colony on Mars next week!

Pfft. If social media has proved anything, it's that people are completely bereft of skepticism or any sort of critical thinking skills. The winners are the advertising and marketing execs who are getting a great lesson in how easy we are to manipulate through propaganda and emotional appeals.

BarryLee · February 24, 2018, 11:17 AM

Quote:

I'm a bit confused by all these corporate boycotts. I wasn't under the impression that companies like Hertz or Oil of Olay or any of the others were significant donors in any way.

Actually most of these companies offered discounts to NRA Members, so they get more customers and NRA Members save a few bucks. I'm not sure any of these folks were really big contributors. I think the impact is not that we lose discounts on car rental, but it feeds into the public demonizing of gun owners as if we are somehow outside the mainstream.

https://benefits.nra.org/

doofus47 · February 24, 2018, 11:34 AM

"We need action, not ideas" the rallying cry of the student movement. I am thinking that this is a great time to quote the poet W.B. Yeats:

ON HEARING THAT THE STUDENTS OF OUR NEW UNIVERSITY HAVE JOINED THE AGITATION AGAINST IMMORAL LITERATURE

WHERE, where but here have pride and Truth,
That long to give themselves for wage,
To shake their wicked sides at youth
Restraining reckless middle-age?

**Tom Servo** · February 24, 2018, 11:35 AM

So, "yay! We pressured a company into doing something irrelevant but symbolic!"

KyJim · February 24, 2018, 01:48 PM

Seth MacFarlane addressed the Social Media feeding frenzy in one of the episodes of the TV SciFi series "The Orville." There's a short clip available.

**Tom Servo** · February 24, 2018, 02:57 PM

Was that the one in which guilt or innocence were decided by social media and people hired public-relations consultants instead of lawyers? I fear that's where we're going as a society.

Aspirant · February 24, 2018, 03:35 PM

Social media amplifies not information, but emotion.

Mass shootings may cause relatively few casualties in the scheme of things, but I think the fight for recognition of gun rights as a net positive for US society has largely been lost. Said companies actually consider it a good thing to revoke NRA partnerships -- call it virtue signalling if you want, but the fact that it's even a virtue is the troubling part.

These boycotts are just a symptom of a far deeper problem -- that of the perception of sporting rifles and those who claim the right to own them. We could go blue in the face pointing out that UK or Australian-style bans won't work, but when emotions are high that's what everyone -- us, them, corporations, the government -- decides with. Evidence just comes in later to justify whatever the decision is.

There aren't any easy solutions, but a good approach comes at the end of John Ringo's sociology-textbook-disguised-as-novel The Last Centurion, where the US Army is accused of all sorts of atrocities by the media, but fight back by making their own reality show, giving the overall context and why they made the calls they did.

How something like that would work and be watched and considered by those on the fence... well, that's what you pay agencies to create. The more 'sticky' talking points that can be made up and repeated (the same thing the other side is doing) the better.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

libiglou · February 24, 2018, 04:22 PM

Their marching on Washington, we need to march on Washington. We need to bring our kids and wives and show we have numbers. The gun owning non NRA members have to start waking up to what is going on. Whether you own an ar or a bolt action they are coming to regulate and confiscate.

cdoc42 · February 24, 2018, 11:07 PM

As long as there is ONE auto rental company left, and ONE hotel, that accepts NRA discount memberships, they both get the attention of 5 million NRA members. Who wins and who loses?

KyJim · February 25, 2018, 01:01 AM

Quote:

Was that the one in which guilt or innocence were decided by social media and people hired public-relations consultants instead of lawyers? I fear that's where we're going as a society

That's the one.

RETG · February 25, 2018, 08:47 AM

I don't do social media, other than some forums, would prefer to get a social decease them screw around on Facebook, twitter or whatever happy feeling new site comes along. As for these companies I will be no longer doing business with them in the future.
And I will be selling all my symantic stock tomorrow (well over 100 shares), and when my subscription with them on my computers expires I will not be renewing. And checking any of the mutual plans I have to see what stock they own and if needed, cashing out and obtaining different plans.

I have Metlife dental via my federal retirement; however, next year I will pick one of the five or six other companies.

So when people say they are not going to do business, don't! and Don't forget any stock you might own.

shurshot · February 25, 2018, 11:01 AM

I wrote a polite, but pointed email to each of the company's that is boycotting the NRA and reminded them that they insulted 5,000,000 law abiding citizens, investors and customers, as they are choosing to pursue a socialist political agenda. Not smart buisness! If half of the NRA did the same, it would send a strong message.

Double Naught Spy · February 25, 2018, 11:14 AM

First, as a forum, we are social media as well. Funny how people don't understand that a place on the web designed for people to interact with one another is social media. So we are apparently just another group of mischaracterized "lemmings" (which don't jump off cliffs). So every way in which we denigrate social media is a reflexive statement and is self destructive to our on credibility, but as our own tribe of pro gun lemmings, we will ignore or refuse to see our own mob mentality and emotional reactions, just like other tribes of lemmings.

Boycotts? How many times on TFL have people called for boycotts on companies that didn't do what we liked? We really rocked their worlds didn't we?

Quote:

As long as there is ONE auto rental company left, and ONE hotel, that accepts NRA discount memberships, they both get the attention of 5 million NRA members. Who wins and who loses?

Well, it won't be the NRA members who win. Not all rental car places are at all locations, nor are all hotels. However, just because a company offers a discount does not mean it is the best value or best price. People are often poor consumers and fail to realize this, and their utilization of a discount can often end up costing them more money than had they just gone full price with another company.

Quote:

I'm a bit confused by all these corporate boycotts. I wasn't under the impression that companies like Hertz or Oil of Olay or any of the others were significant donors in any way.

They aren't significant donors to the NRA. Heck, most of the gun companies aren't impressive donors, either. http://money.cnn.com/news/cnnmoney-i...ors/index.html Individuals, not companies, are the impressive donors.

These boycotting companies generally just offer perqs of discounts on the goods/services they offer. The only thing impacted, really, is whether or not the NRA member was cashing in on the discount.

**44 AMP** · February 25, 2018, 01:26 PM

Quote:

First, as a forum, we are social media as well.

Ok, point taken.

So how do you characterize the lemmings who blindly follow their cause of the day on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and probably several others I've never heard of??

Is "sheeple" a better word? While there is a lot of groupthink/herd mentality in a flock of sheep, there is individual thought, too. Ask any sheepherder...the individual thought is usually something stupid, like "lets not stick with the herd, lets wander off somewhere else and see if we can't find some way to get killed"... but it is individual thought.

rickyrick · February 25, 2018, 02:12 PM

Two types of people use social media.
One type completely bases reality on social media; should I say, social media basically runs their lives and believes the narrative that has been spoon fed to them.
The other type uses it as a tool, means of entertainment, easy access to information or just enjoys trolling people.

February 23, 2018, 12:25 PM	#1
BarryLee Senior Member Join Date: July 29, 2010 Location: The ATL (OTP) Posts: 3,946	Boycotts, Social Media & Gun Control A couple of yeas ago I expressed concern about social media and how it might ultimately impact the debate on gun control. As I said then many traditional news outlets may support gun control, but still offer at least some information from gun rights advocates. However, social media presents often a very one-sided, limited and often untrue representation of an issue. Social media also moves very rapidly and can place a lot of pressure on individuals, politicians and corporations. We now see companies like Delta Airlines, Enterprise Car rental. Symantec (Norton), First National of Omaha and Chubb insurance severing ties with the NRA over threats of boycotts being pushed on social media @boycottnra. Social media often present only a one-sided misinformed caricature of gun owners, but these campaigns tend to carry a lot of power and only add to the ranks of the “useful idiots”. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.eb145a3d91c9 https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/23/1...n-nra-discount https://www.ajc.com/business/delta-e...pvTOlP7eYOHwM/ __________________ A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it ... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman Last edited by BarryLee; February 24, 2018 at 11:11 AM. Reason: Added Delta

February 23, 2018, 05:41 PM	#4
44 AMP Staff Join Date: March 11, 2006 Location: Upper US Posts: 28,832	Social media is mob rule. It is the leadership of human lemmings who literally will run off the cliff if the (mostly anonymous) leaders send them that way. I just saw some blurb about how some company lost a billon+ dollars in stock value, because some starlet tweeted that she no longer used their app. lemmings. individually small, and not particularly dangerous, but when a million of them run over your ass, you're pretty well stomped. Not particularly dangerous to many of us, but if you run a business that depends on general public good will for customers, potentially deadly. And, it doesn't even matter if you aren't actually doing what ever thing it is they accuse you of, thanks to social media, you're tried in their court of public opinion, convicted by the fact that you were accused, and punished, all in the space the time it takes to type a text. And, its spread all across the entire world, instantly. Personally, I don't listen to lemmings, but others do, because they do have money, and they can vote. The tyranny of the mob is sill tyranny, and is potentially the greatest threat to free speech and free thought currently existing. Tyranny by the government is always a threat, but tyranny by social groups who do their best to destroy anyone who disagrees with them is just as real, and might be worse for us, in the long run... __________________ All else being equal (and it almost never is) bigger bullets tend to work better.

February 23, 2018, 09:38 PM	#5
Evan Thomas Senior Member Join Date: July 7, 2008 Location: Upper midwest Posts: 5,631	If we can keep this to the influence of social media on the gun control debate, I'll let it run, but this isn't the forum for general rants about everything going to hell in a handbasket. Keep the discussion focused on gun-related matters, please. __________________ Never let anything mechanical know you're in a hurry.

February 23, 2018, 10:49 PM	#8
HiBC Senior Member Join Date: November 13, 2006 Posts: 8,286	I think if you take the whole of gun owners and those who support the 2A,we are not the "minority" that we are represented as. Both parties know its a bad idea to pass us off. Here is a critical fact to understand. As few as 10 people with the right apps can seem to be 10 million people,or more, on social media. That fooled folks for a while. Its no secret now. If Hertz wants to cut ties with the NRA,fine. No gun owner should ever rent a Hertz vehicle again. It might be time to buy stock in Avis.IMO,the NRA should defy the Mayor of Dallas and have the convention.Then dump Dallas.Take the convention elsewhere.Post billboards apologizing to the friends in Dallas.Use social media to turn it back on them.Thar Dem mayor may be replaced by a GOP mayor. Money talks. The NRA has a network of millions of loyal supporters.And the NRA can easily put a brochure of every business that has cut ties with the NRA in our mailboxes. The critical step is for us to write letters and cut ties with each of these companies. Tell them why. Encourage friends and family to do the same. Look around at how much money is invested in marketing and advertising. It all gets flushed away if you alienate millions of customers.Look what is happening to the NFL. ESPN.We even made changes at S+W. There will be a lot of CEO changes. Give it time. And don't doubt our strength. Be part of it. Stand strong. Last edited by HiBC; February 23, 2018 at 10:55 PM.

February 24, 2018, 11:34 AM	#13
doofus47 Senior Member Join Date: June 9, 2010 Location: live in a in a house when i'm not in a tent Posts: 2,483	"We need action, not ideas" the rallying cry of the student movement. I am thinking that this is a great time to quote the poet W.B. Yeats: ON HEARING THAT THE STUDENTS OF OUR NEW UNIVERSITY HAVE JOINED THE AGITATION AGAINST IMMORAL LITERATURE WHERE, where but here have pride and Truth, That long to give themselves for wage, To shake their wicked sides at youth Restraining reckless middle-age? __________________ I'm right about the metric system 3/4 of the time.

February 23, 2018, 02:08 PM	#2
SIGSHR Senior Member Join Date: September 13, 2005 Posts: 4,700	And we can take our dollars elsewhere. And who was it who said her opponents supporters belong in a "basket of delporables". Where is she today ?

February 23, 2018, 05:12 PM	#3
Rachen Senior Member Join Date: May 10, 2006 Location: Weekend cowboy Posts: 542	I am well aware of the recent abuses of social media platforms to defame and defile certain individuals and groups. All these hashtags, most of which had been started out with good intentions, are now being manipulated in ways that make "Fake News" sound like birds chirping on a summer morning. BUT, there will be unintended consequences of this abuse of social media. Long before #metoo has turned into a witch hunt and campaign of mass hysteria by certain individuals with grudges or seeking financial gain, I had told a coworker that #metoo is going to blow out of all proportion and instigate an atmosphere of distrust and paranoia which will seep into normal and healthy relationships as well. And before 2017 even ended, we saw it blow out of control. It all started with a certain South Asian man in NYC whose differing account of a dating encounter led to mass allegations of #metoo being used as a tool of personal vendetta. And pretty soon came the accounts of men refusing to host individual meetings with female business acquaintances, men even hiring chaperones and "guards" to watch over events where both sexes mingle, Corporations requiring males and females to ride in segregated vehicles when on business trips. An entirely new etiquette seemed to be created solely for the purpose of limiting or completely eliminating any contact between the two sexes. There were even stories of male workers in several large companies, including Uber, Google and Yahoo forming special "mutual defense associations" designed to provide each other with legal aid in case of false accusations of sexual misconduct. NO ONE, and I mean, NO ONE saw all this snowballing. Wasn't #metoo supposed to be a tool of outing all the creeps and miscreants lurking amongst us? It was certainly meant to be used that way, until someone realized they can use it to their own advantage, with potentially illegal gain. Perhaps someone had read Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" and got some ideas? We don't know but it certainly caused a massive influx of unintended consequences. When I saw this latest news on the #metoo scandal, I had also told my coworker: "Does people know what men in history have done when they feel that their lives and livelihoods are being threatened? We tend to form orders and fraternities for the sole purpose of defense. They were called Templars, Hospitallers, Knights of Malta, and were known by many other names". Apparently we are starting to see the same thing happen all over again with this hashtag nonsense. So on this topic of social media being used to spread fake news in the interest of demonizing gun owners, this will have it's own unintended consequences. Sure, it may provoke divisions and infighting in the gun owner community. But in the long run, this will cause gun owners to band together and become more of an organized and disciplined force in activism and mutual protection. Haven't the antigunners always feared, since the late 80s', that the "right wing gun nuts" are going to form "militias"? Their recent social media efforts to portray gun owners as all psychopathic loons may provoke a lot of useful idiots out there to start to attack people that they deem to be "gun nuts" for no reason, and such actions may just cause the "NRA guys" to organize ourselves like a modern day crusader order.

February 23, 2018, 09:49 PM	#6
kmw1954 Senior Member Join Date: June 11, 2016 Location: SE Wisconsin Posts: 1,524	I am still in the Dark Ages as I have no social media accounts. None! And I like it that way and do not feel as if I've missed anything. The closest I have to social media are web forums like this one.

February 23, 2018, 10:57 PM	#9
rickyrick Senior Member Join Date: March 15, 2010 Posts: 8,236	First time since 2008, I just sent the nra a chunk of money. Chunk of money by my standards,that is. I also stuffed a bunch of $20s in charity boxes this year. If anyone hasn’t realized that the big social media platforms are just huge propaganda arms yet... they’re not gonna.

February 24, 2018, 11:35 AM	#14
Tom Servo Staff Join Date: September 27, 2008 Location: Foothills of the Appalachians Posts: 13,059	So, "yay! We pressured a company into doing something irrelevant but symbolic!" __________________ Sometimes it’s nice not to destroy the world for a change. --Randall Munroe

February 24, 2018, 01:48 PM	#15
KyJim Senior Member Join Date: July 26, 2005 Location: The Bluegrass Posts: 9,142	Seth MacFarlane addressed the Social Media feeding frenzy in one of the episodes of the TV SciFi series "The Orville." There's a short clip available.

February 24, 2018, 02:57 PM	#16
Tom Servo Staff Join Date: September 27, 2008 Location: Foothills of the Appalachians Posts: 13,059	Was that the one in which guilt or innocence were decided by social media and people hired public-relations consultants instead of lawyers? I fear that's where we're going as a society. __________________ Sometimes it’s nice not to destroy the world for a change. --Randall Munroe

February 24, 2018, 03:35 PM	#17
Aspirant Member Join Date: December 28, 2017 Location: Singapore Posts: 19	Social media amplifies not information, but emotion. Mass shootings may cause relatively few casualties in the scheme of things, but I think the fight for recognition of gun rights as a net positive for US society has largely been lost. Said companies actually consider it a good thing to revoke NRA partnerships -- call it virtue signalling if you want, but the fact that it's even a virtue is the troubling part. These boycotts are just a symptom of a far deeper problem -- that of the perception of sporting rifles and those who claim the right to own them. We could go blue in the face pointing out that UK or Australian-style bans won't work, but when emotions are high that's what everyone -- us, them, corporations, the government -- decides with. Evidence just comes in later to justify whatever the decision is. There aren't any easy solutions, but a good approach comes at the end of John Ringo's sociology-textbook-disguised-as-novel The Last Centurion, where the US Army is accused of all sorts of atrocities by the media, but fight back by making their own reality show, giving the overall context and why they made the calls they did. How something like that would work and be watched and considered by those on the fence... well, that's what you pay agencies to create. The more 'sticky' talking points that can be made up and repeated (the same thing the other side is doing) the better. Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

February 24, 2018, 04:22 PM	#18
libiglou Senior Member Join Date: June 28, 2017 Posts: 184	Their marching on Washington, we need to march on Washington. We need to bring our kids and wives and show we have numbers. The gun owning non NRA members have to start waking up to what is going on. Whether you own an ar or a bolt action they are coming to regulate and confiscate.

February 24, 2018, 11:07 PM	#19
cdoc42 Senior Member Join Date: March 13, 2005 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 1,687	As long as there is ONE auto rental company left, and ONE hotel, that accepts NRA discount memberships, they both get the attention of 5 million NRA members. Who wins and who loses?

February 25, 2018, 08:47 AM	#21
RETG Senior Member Join Date: September 22, 2009 Location: Somewhere in Idaho, near WY Posts: 507	I don't do social media, other than some forums, would prefer to get a social decease them screw around on Facebook, twitter or whatever happy feeling new site comes along. As for these companies I will be no longer doing business with them in the future. And I will be selling all my symantic stock tomorrow (well over 100 shares), and when my subscription with them on my computers expires I will not be renewing. And checking any of the mutual plans I have to see what stock they own and if needed, cashing out and obtaining different plans. I have Metlife dental via my federal retirement; however, next year I will pick one of the five or six other companies. So when people say they are not going to do business, don't! and Don't forget any stock you might own.

February 25, 2018, 11:01 AM	#22
shurshot Senior Member Join Date: August 25, 2006 Posts: 1,819	I wrote a polite, but pointed email to each of the company's that is boycotting the NRA and reminded them that they insulted 5,000,000 law abiding citizens, investors and customers, as they are choosing to pursue a socialist political agenda. Not smart buisness! If half of the NRA did the same, it would send a strong message.

February 25, 2018, 02:12 PM	#25
rickyrick Senior Member Join Date: March 15, 2010 Posts: 8,236	Two types of people use social media. One type completely bases reality on social media; should I say, social media basically runs their lives and believes the narrative that has been spoon fed to them. The other type uses it as a tool, means of entertainment, easy access to information or just enjoys trolling people.