Parkland anger prompts NRA backlash; Fox’s Starnes freaks out

Something peculiar is happening. It’s been over a week since the Parkland shooting, and the anger hasn’t died down. Gun control advocates aren’t going quiet, and the Right’s attempts to pivot the conversation into one about mental illness, or the futility of regulating crime, or anything else that isn’t guns, aren’t working. The survivors of the shooting are still speaking out and generating buzz, and because they’re teenagers, they haven’t run out of steam or been cowed by the swarm of gun-lobby drones and Right-wing tone trolls who unwisely think they can out-smacktalk them on Twitter. It’s reached the point where Republican officials, and even the sitting president (sort of, maybe), are considering tightening up gun laws.

I know. I’m as confused by all this as you are. Americans died in a senseless gun-related slaughter, and people are still talking about guns? When’s that ever happened?

Perhaps the clearest sign that something’s up is how the biggest name in the gun lobby, that wretched hive of scum and villainy that is the NRA, is finally facing some real blowback, to the point where other companies now consider them bad for business and are cutting ties:

United Airlines announced Saturday that it would eliminate a discount program for the National Rifle Association (NRA), following in the footsteps of competitor Delta Airlines and a host of other companies that have cut ties with the gun group in recent days.

[…]

Multiple car rental companies, including National Car Rental, Enterprise and Alamo, announced this week that they would end their discount programs, and car pricing group TrueCar announced it would end its program that allowed NRA members to save an average of nearly $3,400 on new and used cars.

First National Bank of Omaha also announced Thursday it would end its business relationship with the gun group, which included issuing NRA-branded credit cards to members.

Personally, I have reservations over how effective this boycott will prove, as boycotts don’t often produce much in the way of results nowadays (otherwise Rush Limbaugh would have been off the air since the days of slutgate). But it’ll be interesting to watch how it unfolds.

Oh, and there’s another sign that the backlash is working: Gun apologists are losing their minds, and perhaps none more spectacularly than Fox News’s Todd Starnes:

First @Delta objected to freedom of religion. Now, they are opposed to the right to bear arms. How very -- unAmerican.

— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) February 24, 2018

I'm on the phone right now with a @delta @DeltaAssist Diamond Medallion agent asking if NRA members would still be permitted to fly @Delta. She put me on hold to ask a supervisor.

— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) February 24, 2018

Do we have a list of airlines that have not declared war on the Second Amendment?

— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) February 24, 2018

A @Delta agent just got back to me - she said to her knowledge law-abiding gun owners and NRA members are still permitted to fly on their jetliners.

— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) February 24, 2018

Only in the bizarre alternate reality these idjits inhabit does a company’s announcement that they’re ending discounts for members of one organization translate to “ARE THEY BANNING GUN OWNERS?”. I have no love for Delta, but do spare a thought for the poor phone operators who now have to put up with Starnes and anyone else inspired by him to call and argue about something that never happened.

(via Joe.My.God.)