Why companies haven't said much about latest mass shootings
“There’s nothing really new about it, other than increased frustration," said Lewis Barr, general counsel of Conversica.
An elementary school mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 students and two teachers has prompted an outpouring of grief in the in-house community, with some attorneys taking to social media to express anxiety and frustration.
But unlike with previous, high-profile shootings—which prompted major corporations across the country to cut ties with gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association, stop offering their services to manufacturers of certain guns, and urge lawmakers to pass gun control legislation—the companies that employ these lawyers have largely been silent this time.
Related: Salesforce employees call on execs to cut ties with NRA
Recent state legislation that penalizes companies for exhibiting bias against the gun industry, no clear courses of action and dwindling hope that change will occur likely accounts for the quiet, attorneys say.
Companies probably “feel like they have nothing to add to what they said in 2017 and 2018 and 2019,” said Dru Stevenson, a professor with the South Texas College of Law Houston whose research covers gun policy.
“We’ve been dealing with this subject for so long,” said Lewis Barr, vice president of legal and general counsel at Foster City, California-based software company Conversica. “There’s nothing really new about it, other than increased frustration, and I think the feeling of a lot of people that our political system is obviously broken.”
Barr contrasted the lack of progress on gun reform to the changes resulting from the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, both of which have resulted in policy changes and shifts in corporate norms. He said he doesn’t believe the recent series of mass shootings—which include what authorities called a racially motivated killing of 10 Black people in a Buffalo, New York, supermarket as well as more than a dozen shootings over Memorial Day weekend—will serve as a similar tipping point in conversations around gun control.
The lack of corporate response also stands in stark contrast to how companies responded to a leaked U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, which prompted major companies like DoorDash, Levi Strauss and United Talent Agency to announce they would provide funding for employees seeking abortion services unavailable in their local area.
“They all responded very publicly to the leaked abortion opinion,” said Stevenson, but with the shootings, “I think it’s a little less clear exactly what they can do. So you can offer to cover employees who want to go to another state—travel costs and stuff—but it’s hard to apply that in reverse, unless a company is going to announce you’re not welcome to work for us if you’re a gun owner, or something like that.”
Following a 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, several major banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, publicly distanced themselves from the gun industry, with some curtailing lending to manufacturers of certain guns. Delta Air Lines, Hertz and Alamo were among companies that ended discount programs for NRA members, while executives at more than 150 companies—including Twitter, Uber and Pinterest—wrote to Senate leaders urging expansion of background checks and stronger “red flag” laws.
It’s likely many of these companies “feel like they already took a stance on this issue, and nothing happened, nothing changed,” Stevenson said.
On May 13, JPMorgan sent a letter to the Texas attorney general through the bank’s attorneys at Foley & Lardner indicating its willingness to work with the gun industry. According to The New York Times, which reported the letter last week, the letter was in response to Senate Bill 19, a Texas law that bans state agencies from working with companies that discriminate against companies or individuals in the gun industry. The law, which went into effect in September, requires banks and other professional services firms to provide affirmation in writing that they comply with the law.
The law is the first of its kind in the country, but similar laws are under consideration in at least 10 states. (Last year, Texas also passed SB 13, which imposes similar restrictions on companies that exhibit bias against the fossil fuel industry.) In an essay for the Duke Center for Firearms Law, Stevenson noted that media coverage of the statutes characterized them as responses to the banks’ policy changes following the Parkland shootings.
While Stevenson said he doubted the Texas law is the only reason many companies have been silent on recent shootings, “there probably is a concern about the last time they did this, it contributed to a backlash of statutes.”
If companies aren’t rushing to publicize their stance to the recent shootings, that doesn’t necessarily mean executives are ignoring the issue.
Barr, who wrote an impassioned LinkedIn post on gun control last week, said that, while attorneys have a responsibility to reflect on how their behavior affects their clients, he felt his message was consistent with the beliefs of Conversica, where the CEO had led a discussion among executives on whether and how to address the shootings.
Ada Okafor, general counsel and chief diversity equity and inclusion officer at the American Board of Surgery, similarly expressed her grief via a Linkedin post. “I figured that if I was feeling like this, others were as well, so I set up ‘office hours’ and offered a safe space for my colleagues to discuss, unpack and process,” Okafor wrote.
“We also held a moment of silence because sometimes there are no words for what or how you’re feeling and you just need to be still and sit in the weight of the moment.”
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