When Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky put this photo of him posing with his family & their guns, my friend Jeff Tiedrich tweeted. “Every single one of these guns cost more than a Le Creuset pot.”
So I asked some of my friends in the Gun Violence Prevention movement if they knew what all these guns were, how much they cost and the cost of the ammo to fill their magazines.
I expect this photo will be discussed on the cable shows and late night comedy because this is the kind of sick trolling that the GOP engages in and is easy to talk about. “That’s disgusting! What a horrible person!” But that will be the end of it. So I wanted to know if there was anyone whose opinion Massie cared about he would listen to. So I looked at his donors. It’s filled with right wing PAC money from right wing donors & gun rights groups.
Oh look! The National Association for Gun Rights spoke up! Cool.
I haven’t contacted corp donors directly yet, like Judd Legum did with the corporations who donated to the elected officials who voted not to certify the election results on January 6th. Corporation PR departments usually have an answer, ranging from, ‘No comment to” “While the photo is in poor taste, Rep. Massie did not violate any laws by publishing that photo.”
But some people might be disgusted, especially Joe Kiani, who founded medical tech company Masimo and is a big Biden donor. He was appointed to President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. He might want to make a donations to the #Oxford victim funds that is the equivalent of what he donated to Massie.
(If any of you do want to donate here is a Gofundme link & local news story on how to mail checks to the official Oxford Community Memorial & Victims Fund.)
NRA blood money was used to fund Trump and other politicians, but because of the weakness of the FEC, nothing has happened. The pro-guns everywhere people know how to fund politicians who think as they do. Corporations fund these people because they are on important committees. But these corporations need to be alerted to just how extreme these people are, and the consequences of continuing to support them.
I don’t expect any corps to engage in a twitter thread about funding Massie, that will be done behind the scenes, unless they are called out on it and need to make a comment because there is pressure internally or from the public. So if you want these companies to know, just tell them. You don’t have to threaten to boycott, just let them know so they can change their donation pattern.
