The Hillreports that Cruz responded to the letter while attending a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor on Thursday. He said, “I don’t think it’s a positive thing to see big corporations shifting their focus from their customers and actually doing what they were created to do into trying to become political players on divisive social issues.”
Cruz observed that the corporate gun control push “is about social signaling at the country club.”
Without revealing the name of the financial institution, Cruz spoke about one bank that removed its name from a gun control push after learning more about what was really going on.
He said, “I will note with at least one of those banks that came out with one of those oh-so-brave corporate letters, when I sat down with their leadership and actually asked them about it, the people who wrote the letter didn’t know the first thing about the substance.”
Cruz said he asked the bank CEO to define/detail an “assault rifle,” and the CEO could not do it.
That’s because corporations are being run by HR, legal and finance today rather than people who actually know anything. These people graduated yesterday with social studies degrees from liberal arts colleges, having been educated in Fascism and anti-American doctrine.
Question: does anyone in the republican party other than Ted Cruz and Thomas Massie actually understand the mammoth error they are getting ready to make by embracing gun control? Does anyone in the party other than these two guys have even three brain cells?
By the way, readers can expect to see that phrase over, and over, and over, and over again here: “Corporate gun control is about social signaling at the country club.”
It is with great sadness that I write to you. I have readers who have already done so, but I thought I should weigh in on your recent decision to ban open carry in your stores.
I had occasion to shop at Publix on Saturday and asked to talk to the manager. He was a delightful man, very respectful, but just a bit ill-informed on what the law says about open carry and leaving me a bit confused on your policy.
I informed the gentleman that I chose to shop at Publix not only because I can openly carry, which is entirely legal in North Carolina, but also because I wanted to reward Publix for your stand. I had previously been told by the store manager that Publix follows state law, whatever that happens to be.
In North Carolina, that has worked just fine. No one gives me strange looks, women and children don’t run screaming for the doors, and sometimes store employees even discuss it with me, asking me what brand of firearm I have, asking about my recommendations for purchases, and so forth.
Your manager brought up the issue of the recent shootings in El Paso and elsewhere, saying that they would not allow something like an AR-15 to be brought into the store, and I explained to him that, as he knew, it was legal to openly carry a firearm in North Carolina. If I touched my weapon, that’s called brandishing, and it’s illegal. If I unholstered it, or pointed it towards anyone, that’s called assault with a deadly weapon, and it’s illegal. He had not previously understood that. The shooter in El Paso broke the law the second he exited his automobile holding a rifle.
When asked for clarification on the new Publix policy, he explained that Publix would “respectfully request” that people not openly carry in Publix stores, but that legally they could not do anything about it. That’s not true, I explained. I must respect the wishes of private property owners and refrain from openly carrying if I know the request has been made.
You see, there is no easy way around this. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. You cannot please the forces of gun control while at the same time leaving room for me to openly carry in Publix stores by merely “requesting” that I not openly carry, leaving it to my discretion because “there’s legally nothing you can do about it.”
I suspect that your HR department, your financial people, and your legal department, have made a choice to involve you in corporate gun control as social signaling at the country club. You’ve been backed into a corner by your own people, and perhaps too stolid to understand that. Otherwise, this decision is entirely on you, and you should be considered 100% responsible for the new policy.
Which is it, sir? Were you backed into a corner by your own people, who convinced you that there was a happy medium on this issue? Or was this your decision? Who is it that wants to virtue signal at the country club? Are you a member of a country club, sir?
In either case, I cannot say enough to express my disappointment with your company. I explained to the manager that while I may have to make a pragmatic decision and shop at Publix in the future because only you happen to have a product and someone else doesn’t, I will not longer happily reward Publix with my hard earned money as a patron. You are not entitled to my hard earned money. You must earn it, and this decision is a huge blow against your account.
Don’t you see how much easier it would be had you simply told the controllers to go away, and that “You follow state law, whatever that may be?” It works fine here in North Carolina. How would you like it if we came to Florida and forced our own laws on you?
If being on that list is going to prevent you (but not criminals or real terrorists) from buying firearms, who thinks the next step won‘t be to confiscate the guns you already own? (That’s where registration lists, which the National Institute of Justice acknowledges are necessary for “universal background checks” to “work,” can come in so handy, especially when supplemented with so-called “red flag laws.”) And if you are one of those real terrorists and are dumb enough to fill out a Form 4473 and submit yourself to a NICS approval, what better way to be tipped off that you’ve been “made” than to be helpfully told the feds won’t allow your firearm transfer to proceed?
[ … ]
don’t forget the undeniable truth that is now out in the open: The antis not only want your guns, they want you treated like terrorists, that is, imprisoned without rights and/or killed. That’s not hyperbole. The words are theirs. And those in government want to make it official.
Beware of lists of names. Such things empower the Leviathan, but its appetite never ceases – it only grows. Placing names on lists is subject to all of the governmental abuse, ideological bias and bureaucratic twists that any other government program is, but only worse.
Democrats advanced a new measure this week to encourage states to pass “red flag” laws. These so-called extreme risk protection orders authorize removing guns and ammunition from individuals deemed as dangerous by some anonymous, unaccountable person, but it would not include the ready-made lists of gang members.
Republicans tried to add an amendment including known gang members, but the Democrats will not permit the inclusion of gang databases. It’s odd since gangs are the ones causing most of the so-called gun violence.
They would agree to include the names of white supremacists, but not other terror groups.
The House Judiciary rejected any effort by Republicans to include gang databases since they are worried about people mistakenly taken for a gang member. They brought up the ‘no-fly, no-buy’ list which was filled with inaccuracies, but Rep. Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican, who hoped to amend the measure to include gang databases, reminded the Democrats the restrictions for placing someone on a gang database are much tougher than the no-fly list.
“White supremacists.” If you believe that the U.S. should close the borders, that includes you. As for the rest of it, this little tidbit is just rich: “They brought up the ‘no-fly, no-buy’ list which was filled with inaccuracies …”
Yes it is, but whether it falsely flags “white supremacists” is another story. They care about the one, but not the other.
“It’s sad to see a highly-respected American corporation cravenly bending the knee to the forces of darkness. It shows a lack of courage. It shows a lack of foresight. It shows a lack of knowledge or, worse, a rejection of knowledge.
Only two states, Texas and Florida, keep statistics on “does this arrestee have a weapons permit?”. The data from these two states is startling. Lawful gun-carriers are arrested (not convicted, just arrested) at rates between 1/7th and 1/13th the rate for the general population, depending on the year chosen. What that means is that the people who go to the trouble of getting a carry permit are among the safest, most law-abiding people in the country. As a class, they are more law-abiding than the police, and your policy is to insult them and treat them as if they were criminals-in-waiting. Was that your intent or did you simply not think this all the way through?
Recall, as well, that on August 8th, an ordinary citizen — not law enforcement — stopped a potential mass shooting at a Wal-Mart in Springfield MO. Are you publicly asserting that you don’t want any of your customers intervening to stop such incidents in your stores? That would be a surprise, and not a pleasant one, either.
Principles are funny things. They sometimes cause us to say things or do things that others — often ‘others who lack much in the way of principles’ — interpret negatively. That is, alas, what Publix’s latest announcement looks like. It looks like Publix flinched in order to avoid ‘bad PR’ from people whose thinking doesn’t extend beyond “guns bad”. Those same people see the world as full of evildoers who wish nothing so much as to harm others. In such a world, people with guns are a positive danger.
You might suspect that I hold a different view, and you would be correct. I believe our world, despite the occasional ‘bad apple’, is full of loving people who care about their neighbors and want them to live happy, safe, and prosperous lives.
The Associated Press reports the 29-year-old officer, a five-year veteran of the force, was shot in the abdomen “just below the vest.” The officer was shot after chasing a suspect into a backyard, where “a struggle ensued” that ended with the suspect taking the officer’s gun and shooting him with it.
Another officer then entered the backyard and killed the suspect.
Chief Acevedo responded to the incident by denouncing those who will offer sympathy for the officer while refusing to support gun control.
He said, “We were in Washington Monday talking about gun violence in our city, in our community, in our country, and I don’t want to hear from politicians tomorrow about how much they care about my cop.”
He added, “If they’re not here to talk to us about solutions, then don’t bother showing up to the Houston Police Department.”
Acevedo took time to thank Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) for coming out in support of gun control after the August 31, 2019, shooting in Midland-Odessa. On September 2, 2019, Breitbart News reported Patrick’s call for action against private gun sales.
The right answer for today is “Using theft of a police issued weapon to shoot police to press for more gun control.” For today, that is. With Art Acevedo, tomorrow is another day to use his workers to press his own agenda.
Publix is the latest retailer asking customers to leave their guns at home.
The Lakeland-based supermarket chain joins the growing chorus of national retailers asking customers not to bring guns into stores in states where it is legal to openly carry firearms.
“Publix respectfully requests that only law enforcement officials openly carry firearms in our stores,” the chain told the Sun Sentinel in a statement.
This one is disappointing, since I like the Publix right down the road from me and sometimes open carry there. I’ve been told by the store manager that he doesn’t mind it and that they (Publix) follow state law. I guess not now – they apparently all follow Florida state law. I wonder how Floridians would feel if we imposed our laws on them?
It’s all part of the shaming of gun owners in America, and they’ve buckled to the pressure. I’m willing to bet that not a single instance of trouble has ever occurred due to open carry. This is all about political statements. What a shame. I never thought I would have to post about Publix and gun control at the same time.
I’ll have to send their CEO, Todd Jones, a letter at todd.jones@publix.com.
The Trump administration is reportedly considering a pitch from former NBC Chairman Robert Wright, a presidential pal, for a research program aimed at preventing mass shootings by electronically monitoring people who have received psychiatric diagnoses. That Orwellian plan may or may not be defeated by its utter impracticability.
Wright has dubbed his idea SAFEHOME—an acronym for Stopping Aberrant Fatal Events by Helping Overcome Mental Extremes. The Washington Post reports that his three-page proposal imagines using “technology like phones and smart watches” to “detect when mentally ill people are about to turn violent.” The idea, the papersays, is to look for “small changes that might foretell violence.”
Ouija boards, palm readers, witches, warlocks, carnival fortune tellers, tribal witchdoctors, and “small changes that might foretell violence.”
It’s all the same thing to me, and if you have any sense at all, you too. The Bible clearly says that those guilty of divination will not inherit the kingdom of heaven, and that the Lord hates such people (Galatians 5:19-21, Leviticus 19:24-32, Deuteronomy 18:9-15, Jeremiah 27: 9-19, Exodus 22: 18-19, 1 Samuel 15:23, Isaiah 2:5-8).
6 years, 3 months ago
