What to do about products and brands that oppose our Second Amendment rights
By Benjamin Rist
My wife and I are moving soon, and we recently began watching Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, and decided we want to (at least loosely) follow the KonMari method of de-cluttering as we pack up. One of the fundamental guidelines of KonMari is asking yourself if a particular item sparks joy in you. If it doesn’t, kick it to the curb.
One thing I know I’ll be kicking to the curb: my Levi’s jeans. How should I rid myself of them? That’s up to you.
In 2018, Levi Strauss announced it would partner with Everytown for Gun Safety to create Everytown Business Leaders for Gun Safety, and over four years funnel at least $1 million into these and other anti-gun organizations. It’s my hope that by now, most of you also know about last Thursday’s letter to the U.S. Senate, signed by 145 business leaders urging passage of universal background checks (UBC’s) and red flag laws (RFL’s). Chip Bergh, CEO of Levi Strauss, was of course one of these signatories.
The danger RFL’s pose is obvious to most of us and UBC’s are, at best, extremely burdensome. Both are infringements and steps down the slippery slope in any case. This comes after a week or so of well-known retail and grocery stores asking that folks not open carry in their stores.
This all adds to an ever-increasing list of anti-gun businesses who have shown they are either truly misguided or value virtue signaling over the rights and safety of their customers. The thing is, they have every right to do so as independent corporations. And we have the right to not give them our business, our patronage, our money.
This is a right we should exercise immediately and to the fullest extent possible. We need to boycott these businesses and be as loud about it as we can.
As gun-owners, we have pretty good numbers behind us, but we’re not the loudest group out there. Sometimes, as individuals, we’re cagey about the fact we belong to this wonderful community of gun owners, whether as a result of societal pressure or calculated moves not to show our full hand prior to any number of worst case scenarios. Additionally, many in our ranks are plagued by apathy.
I believe that as a community, we need to get less cagey. The long game for the anti-gunners is to de-normalize gun ownership and use. If the majority of us stay silent, we will lose. In fact, those of us who are already talking need to get louder. That doesn’t mean you should out and lose a job you can’t afford to lose and for goodness sake don’t get yourselves SWAT’ed.
I’ll be the first to admit that it is, and will be, extremely difficult. Hell, I’m wearing a pair of my aforementioned Levi’s right now, and I took an Uber earlier this week. Obviously one must prioritize and that’s a personal choice.
Weigh the offense against how valuable a product or service is to you and the effort it will take to boycott. My Levi’s were the first pants in a long time that brought me joy. Brought. Past tense. Their offense is too great for the product to be worth it to me now.
On the other hand, for example, take another signatory from that list: Square. Tons of small businesses use Square as their point-of-sale system. They have a policy against using their service in relation with firearms (as so many do) and their CEO supports UBC’s and RFL’s.
Is that worth the effort of steering clear of any retailers that use Square? That’s for each one of you to decide on a personal level. But we can also think of less-intense efforts that might shift the equation.
Are you close friends with a small-business owner who uses Square? Maybe try to educate them, let them know of the alternatives (though they might be hard-pressed to find those in the POS space).
Perhaps as you read down that list of 145 CEO’s and think back to other infractions businesses have leveled against gun-owners, there are quite a few that don’t make sense for you to boycott. That’s okay. This will all be hard enough without criticizing ourselves and each other over our shortcomings.
I just want us all to do a little better, to nudge those who do nothing to do something.
Going hand-in-hand with boycott efforts, let’s help each other find pro-gun alternatives to these companies (or at least ones willing to use logic over emotion). Let’s enable the entrepreneurs among us to create new alternatives where we can, and pledge them our support (FireFunder is a great example from recent memory, though unfortunately on hiatus).
Finally, to bring things back to my jeans dilemma. I’ve already decided that Levi Strauss will no longer get any more of my money, and that I’ll no longer provide them with free advertising by continuing to wear their logo out and about. The question still remains: how will I discard them?
Around the same time as the Levi’s announcement, Nike used Colin Kaepernick in an advertising campaign, to the chagrin of many people after the whole kneeling-to-the-anthem debacle. Many of those people chose to respond by burning their Nike gear and taking to social media to make it known. Over the past year I’ve often wondered: if folks reacted so strongly to that Nike ad, why the hell didn’t gun-owners take a torch to every pair of Levi’s they owned?
Well, a few did, but I know why more didn’t follow suit. It’s because we pride ourselves on possessing and displaying more decorum than most, and many of us simply can’t quite bring ourselves to destroy something that still functions. I don’t think we need to abandon those principles just yet.
Thus, I propose that everyone who believes in the Second Amendment who owns a pair of Levi’s (and is of the financial means to do so) donate them to the needy – Goodwill, Salvation Army, whomever you choose – but not before ripping off the logo patch and burning it.
Will you join me? I can boycott and I can burn, but a movement of people burning their Levi’s logos is exponentially louder than one person. Think you have a better idea? Let me know in the comments. Want to join me, but think the movement needs a cool catchy hashtag or whatever? Propose one! Let’s do this together, as a community.
When it comes to Levi’s, or Dick’s branded apparel, give them to the grungiest homeless person you can find.
Nobody can live a perfect life in terms of avoiding companies that oppose civil rights. However, even if you stop doing business with a few of them, that’s a big step in the right direction.
John
Stopping to buy new products makes sense, but why get rid of your old ones? Remove the label if you want to but don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.
They will feel it if they get a severe drop in new sales.
Better than removing the label: I made a 3″ AR-15 stencil and painted a black AR-15 silhouette across the tags. It’s a small symbol, but it means something to me and any that might see it.
Oh, and I will never purchase a Levi’s product again.
You should look into the Swedish Art of Death Cleaning. Seriously. It’s about cutting out all the crap in your life that you accumulate and usually leave for your kids to deal with after you die or lose your marbles.
If I give away my pants then I won’t have any pants.
I agree 100%. I stopped, long ago, buying Levi’s because of other issues with the Levi company. Their anti-gun stance is just one more reason to continue to refuse to purchase their products.
Don’t forget that Levi’s owns Hanes as well.
Dammit
Hanes makes crappy sock and underwear. It’s hard to find a product not owned by a big company. I googled Hanes and they own everything…including Jockey (which I like). Darn it.
Double dang it!
I wear Hanes, and will take their socks any day over Fruit Of The Loom. Though I buy their higher-end socks and undies, and not the bulk stuff sold by the ton at WalMart.
That’s it, I’m going commando.
Be mindful of the zipper.
Now I hear a parody: “Don’t Fear the Zeeper”
I wear “Fruit of the Loom” anyway.
I quit shopping at Walmart when they quit carrying the Rebel flag/Dukes of Hazard stuff claiming it was divisive, but continued carrying Rap music promoting shooting people. Which is worse? Dick’s? Lost my business long ago. As did Levi’s.
We need to vote with our wallet. Then send a copy of the receipt to the store’s main office to let them know they lost the sale.
I like the idea of sending receipt copies with a note to them. Maybe get NRA, GOA, etc. to encourage members, start a drive, etc.
Levi’s has been anti gun for a LONG time. And I stopped buying their offshored products as soon as I found out.
I stopped buying Levi’s, Dockers, and Hanes twenty years ago.
They’ve been a major source of leftist funding at least since the seventies. They played a large part in destroying the Boy Scouts.
Good article.
I gave up levi’s a long time ago, I like Wrangler’s better and they are less expensive.
But the author is correct. We can’t, for various reasons, give up all the companies that we don’t like.
I don’t like the way Amazon does business, but they are pretty much the only game in town. Especially if you live in the sticks.
I don’t particularly like google either, but I’m using a secure Chromebook.
Same for Wallmart, no big fan, but still the least expensive groceries, and I have to go 200 miles round trip to get there.
If someone can come up with alternatives, I would gladly use ’em.
Until then, a lot of us have no good choice.
This on Wranglers. I find that they fit better than Levis, ara a bit cheaper, and last me about as long. There’s a bit of folklore about working cowboys prefering Wranglers. I don’t know if that’s true but, in you spend in time in farm and ranch rural areas you see lots of pairs of Wranglers.
All of my jeans are Wrangler. I found them to be more durable and look better after mucho washing.
My opinion is if you want something buy it but don’t go past alternatives to get there. I don’t do Levi’s but at the same time I think they are spendy for what you do get. Wait till you can get no name Chinese jeans for pennies on the dollar.
My vote is detag and wear em out then make a quilt with what’s left. Waste not want not.
I haven’t worn Levis in years, even though I wear jeans all the time. Andrew, I agree, rip the tags out of them and wear them if you like. Mutlti-Gazillionaire companies like Levis and Amazon could give a crap about what their customers think, and unlike Colt which has always been in and out of bankruptcy ever since Samuel Colt himself was around, have a historical habit of amassing cash. In fact, why not use your BOA ATM card for all of your firearms and ammo purchases, you can’t beat them, but gloat in the joy knowing that they are supporting the 2A in their fiscal greediness as they chime against the 2A.
To answer the author’s question as to why more 2A people don’t “burn their jeans to protect anti-gun movements”…
People know that protesting Colin Kapernick (I don’t think that’s the correct spelling, but I’ve never followed him and who cares anyway) will perhaps earn you the ire of a few Leftists. So what. But burning your jeans as a way of saying you stand for gun ownership will perhaps put you on the radar of an alphabet soup LE agency. For some reason, openly declaring support for the very same Founding Documents they themselves swore allegiance to can get you Red Flagged and scrutinized. Funny thing, that.
I recommend going commando wearing your Levi’s, and summoning the most massive dookie you can. Crap those pants as thoroughly as you can. Then stuff em in a Priority Mail box and ship them to the Levi’s CEO.
If they get a few thousand of those special deliveries, that might get their attention.
I literally laughed out loud in front of everyone! I agree with this plan. Im all for farting for freedom and leaving a log for liberty!
OMG.
I lol’d.
Ah, the Ted Nugent approach.
Levis can suck it, I wear Carhartt anyway.
29/34. Lanky fucker.
Personally I’m not a huge fan of boycotts in general but times are changing. Back in the day corporations focused on money and selling products rather than virtue signalling. If they’re going to do the latter in a way you disapprove of then boycott away.
The real issue IMHO is being more vocal. The simple fact of the matter is that there are more people who won’t buy Levi’s because they’re anti-gun than there are who would refuse to buy them if they remained neutral or even went pro-gun (though this might hurt their ‘overweight mom’ line a bit).
So yeah, it can hit them in the pocketbook. But then we have to show that if they ‘come back to the fold’ that we’d be willing to buy their product(s) again. That’s gonna be a hard sell. There are people who still are quite vocal about not buying Ruger products because of a dead guy. Others are quite vocal about S&W because of the Hillary Hole. Squeaky wheels, petroleum products and all that.
That’s gotta change or even a new CEO will see no real purpose in changing the policy because gun owners hate them, nothing can change that and so it’s time to write them off and look for sales elsewhere.
For CEO types with no political aspirations this is a good way to show them this and get them to change. Those that fancy themselves a governor or Senator won’t change.
I expect that you also threw away everything you’ve ever purchased from Walmart as well.
Its your property, do whatever floats your boat. Do you think Levis is going to change their position because you paid them $50.00 to burn a pair of $5.00 jeans made in a sweat shop in Bangladesh?
I bet you have no idea that Levis were made famous in the sixties by the left labor movement, comrades. Knowing that they are commies in the first place and taking advantage of dirt poor people should have swayed you years ago from them.
I also bet that you probably own an IPhone, use twitter, Facebook and all the other leftist social media that continues to censure the right. How bout Microsoft, AT&T, Google. How about your subscription to your favorite shooters on You Tube. You gonna go celibate? Hahaha.
Grow up, get a real life. Put a 2A sign in your front yard and enjoy your property, orrr, box it up and send it to a charity of your choice if you must be rid of it.
Baby steps, Mack. If you actually read the article, you’ll note that the author suggested you take action at a level that’s right for you. So if that means your way of sticking it to Levi’s is boycotting only Levi’s, then fine. Nobody said you need to go all vegan and wear burlap sacks to avoid financially “supporting” the Left in all possible avenues.
virtue signaling is a waste of time. do what you want, don’t expect anybody else to support you…..
My main boycott wrath is reserved for Springfield Armory & Rock river arms.And Turkish crap.And Amazon. My wife uses the Square and gets a LOT of $ where buyer’s at antique shows wouldn’t buy otherwise. And I’ve told her about their evil(same as WallyWorld,Levi’s and other crap). I do what I can to “spread the word”. Not joining any group…
One thing we can do purchase wise with regards to Square and others like First Data is walk over to that ATM and take out the needed cash for you purchase. They make money on the transaction not the sale of the goods itself. Deny them that processing fee while still being able to get what you needed from a vendor who may also be displeased with their politics.
It ain’t easy to live your life limiting yourself to only those choices that favor all of your beliefs and preferences. I mean, if I could I would never buy anything other than MADE IN USA right down to the raw materials, by an American company with all the profits and wages within the USA.
That’s just not possible. Add in my complex political positions that span both sides and it’d be a nightmare to try and pass anybody’s purity test.
Have not bought Levi’s since many years ago when I learned they were importing and lying about it. That was before I knew their anti-gun stance. So, no longer an issue for me.
Can’t buy an American car. Not really, costs too much, can’t pay for that. Bought an imported name with a substantial percentage of American content. On some things you do what you can.
I can buy strictly American guns. That’s so easy, so affordable and with such a dizzying array of choices it’d be hypocritical of a guy like me to buy imported guns. Or guns that are sort of “American enough” to wrongfully stamp them as MADE IN USA and get away with it.
Oh, I’d like to buy some of the imported boomsticks I see, but decline to do damage to my own country when I can so easily avoid it.
Mostly I can avoid stores and businesses that are anti-gun. Destroyed my Costco/Price Club card years ago when they put up a “No Guns” sign at the entrance, switched to Sam’s Club.
Now with all the food stores being on that naughty list, I’m stuck. So I only carry concealed into a Kroger owned foodery. Nobody ever picked on me or raised the least fuss carrying openly in a Kroger owned grocery chain, but who knows now that they’ve announced a new policy?
Funny thing, was in one of their stores today, a .380 in my pocket. There was, for the first time ever, an armed guard on duty there. I’d seen security company guards there before, an old guy or a college kid. But this was full tilt, an off-duty police officer hired for security, in his police uniform.
And he was unarmed. I mean he had his duty belt with the holster and everything else but there was no gun in it. An empty holster, seriously. Never seen such a thing before.
He was an unarmed armed guard!
This planet’s getting too weird for me.
Hmm, I’ve seen folks open-carrying in a Costco here.
Nobody said anything to. I just saw them put up a big sign and that pissed me off. Told them so, never been back.
I haven’t had Levi’s or Dockers on my butt since 1979, when I found out they were anti-gunners. Wranglers ever since !
I don’t know about liberty, but I do know diarrhea is hereditary,. It runs in your genes
I haven’t bought a pair Levi’s since the 80’s!! They where always more expensive than the other brands.
So I started buying Wranglers.
These companies are owned by the same people that own the main stream media and control the New York banks. It’s not accident that they’re trying to undermine 2A rights.
Nobody controls the big banks. That’s how they got away with crashing the global economy in 2008, got bailed out by the taxpayers, made massive profits off it, paid themselves enormous bonuses and exactly one guy went to jail for like five minutes.
Donate them. The company doesn’t get any money from it- indeed, they could theoretically lose money if the secondary market is big enough- and someone who needs pants can get them. Alternatively,depending on whom you donate to, a charity may resell them and use the money for its ends (so don’t pick the wrong one!)
No, I won’t join you. I will not be purchasing any more jeans from Levi’s, but I’m not getting rid of the ones I have. They already have my money, and getting rid of the jeans I already own won’t “show them”. This is a petty virtue signal that accomplishes nothing.
Recall all the folks destroying thier Yeti coolers in protest. If I had one of those fancy coolers I wound have placed a large piece of white duct tape over the name.
On the other side of it, there were some people that protested and boycotted Chick-fil-a, had no effect on sales or reputatuon.
If there is a website out there that has a list of Pro-2A vs. Anti-2A companies, can someone post that here?
Preferably, a list that compares companies by category/product. Mostly, we need to know who the Pro-2A companies are, not the usual suspects, but a list of where we SHOULD be spending our money for these products.
Anti-2A Companies lists
http://www.2acheck.com/the-boycott-list/
http://www.2acheck.com/2a-ratings/
http://www.2acheck.com/the-boycott-list/nras-list-of-antis/
http://concealednation.org/2018/04/report-here-are-54-anti-gun-companies-that-dont-deserve-your-business/
Here is an idea I have been researching for sometime. We as a collective have power in numbers. This would translate into as voting shareholders to change each company from within like many have in the anti-2A community. Each of us as pro-2A buys 1 share of Walmart or even Levis. We as a group with enough large numbers change the company from within by submitting a new pro-2A policy for a vote as shareholders and voting out board of directors and CEOs that are anti-2A. This has a good chance of working in my investigations. Each shareholder has a vote on most of these publicly traded companies and policies.
This is what was done to Ruger. A bunch of liberals bought shares and tried to force them to back gun control.
I do what I can, especially with some of the flagrant unfringement sympathizers, but I cannot as a practical matter police every party to every economic transaction for ideological purity.
When it gets into multiple degrees of separation, as in what financial service providers the businesses I do business with in turn do business with, it gets ridiculous real fast. I can only shout “Don’t be his friend!” or “Don’t sit beside her at lunchtime!” before I start sounding a lot like a first grader, and a somewhat demented one at that.
I’m not a fan of political correctness and am certainly no supporter of today’s “cancel culture.” Moreover, maintaining an ever expanding list of economic enemies just becomes exhausting. After all, there are numerous issues where I differ from various companies. Support for Democrats in general, perpetuation of the anthropogenic global warming hoax, racist United Negro College Fund scholarships for blacks only, and so forth and so on. I can’t spend all day every day seeking out new corporate grievances to redress.
Haven’t worn Levis in 20 years, don’t wear denim much, but Wranglers when I do. Mostly I wear ripstop Wrangler cargo pants, not particularly dressy or fashionable, but they wear okay and are comfortable in the Atlanta heat. Working on spending less at Walmart and Sams (they are owned by Walmart) there is an Aldi slightly closer. There are others who get less or none of my money. Not really big on boycotts, but I do believe in doing business with people who don’t want to shred our way of life.
Wear 5.11s. Carry cash. Don’t shop at Dick’s. Support your local businesses, they can’t afford to get embroiled in all the political bullshit. But that’s just what I do.
Once a majority of companies or their subsidiaries are part of the anti gun movement boycotts will have no effect. The smart companies will support disarmament quietly.
The democrats are all in for disarming the country and that’s giving encouragement to others. If they lose next year you’ll see a reversal take place. If they win it will become a policy as standard as EEOC.
I don’t buy Levi anymore. It REALLY helps when they’re expensive as crap and Wrangler is so cheap you can practically just throw them away every week and buy a new pair when you go grocery shopping just to avoid having to wash them.
Stopped buying Levis years ago after finding an American made brand. not sure where they stand on the 2A. but i like the way they fit and it feels good that they are American made not many can be found, check out https://www.gusset.com/
I gave up Levis as well. Started wearing them in the early 1970’s and worn them faithfully until 2018 (guess i’m getting old). Still have the last pair which I wear around the house til they wear out. But, no longer give any money to an a**hole like Chip Bergh and Levis. The fact a POS like him was ever in the military just sickens me.
I stopped buying Levi’s before I knew they were anti-2A, so there’s not one pair in the house currently. If I still had some, I might rip the tags off and still wear them. Money doesn’t grow on trees around my house, so if something is still useful, it’s getting used. Kind of like the whole Springfield Armory dust-up; I daily an XDS-9, and they already got my $$ before the whole controversy started. I’m not going to ditch a pistol that I’m already comfortable and proficient with. I just might not buy another one from them in the future.
The thing to do is take a small play from the leftist handbook: Everytime someone says they shop with companies specifically because of their anti-gun stance, respond with:
“Oh, so you are in favor of lynch mobs hanging minorities, got it.”
Or
“Oh, so you are in favor of ethnic cleansing by government, got it.”
Or best yet
“Oh, so you are in favor of women being raped, got it.”
Don’t let them back out of it, nor pose it as a question. Make them own their attack on civil rights.
I have Levis on my stock watch just to see what people think and how it is reflected in the market. It has been a long time since they have been over $20 a share with a big dip when their CEO opened his mouth. As of right now, Levis is at $18.58 while VFC, the company that owns Wrangler jeans is at $87+ a share. Guess who didn’t open their mouth about guns?
I love my Levi’s. Never wore any other denim pants. I heard about this nonsense last week and I’ve been wondering when it comes time to buy pants which will I buy. I dont know. I do know I wont buy Levi’s again. That’s some bullshit management anti American bullshit. I dont think of this as a boycott. For me it’s simply not giving some asshole my money.
I go out of my way to buy American made for things I need and I will pay more for those things if needed. If it is made in China, I do without since I can think of no Chinese-made trinket I can’t live without. I don’t shop and spend money at businesses that I can identify as anti-2A. I’m talking about Dick’s, Wally world, Levi’s and others. I will not crawl into a cave and be a hermit in order not to buy ANYTHING sold by an anti-2A business. If I need something to survive I will buy it.
“If the majority of us stay silent, we will lose.” This is – I think – the most powerful message.
Gun controllers strive to drive us “into the closet”. They persuade us to not put an NRA (or other pro-gun) sticker on our car windows. If we do, our cars are apt to be “keyed”. They persuade us not to mention that we are gun-owners in “polite company”. They drive us underground.
And, some of us collaborate. They advocate practicing the “grey man” operational security. Don’t let anyone know you have guns. The problem with this strategy is that the day we need to “dig up our guns” the number of us who buried them will be so few in number that we won’t be able to resist the overwhelming force.
We need to take a lesson from other “minority” groups who discovered that they needed to come-out-of-the-closet and proudly take their seats at the debate table. Today, it has become socially acceptable to publicly disparage peaceable gun-owners; we must turn THIS around.
How do we do this? Not easy. The gays did it by marching with rainbow boas wrapped around their necks. That wasn’t quite as threatening as open-carrying. We probably aren’t going to march in our boxers at the 4’th of July parade; but, we could march on such occasions bearing arms in a symbolic manner without seeming threatening.
Another thing we can do is advertise our membership in the gun-owning community by wearing T-shirts. My favorite displays an orange dinosaur with stubby arms. The legend reads: “Licensed to carry small arms”. Gotten quite a few chuckles and complements on that shirt.
Use the SMILE option for amazon
A tiny percent of many purchases go to the 2A supporting group of your choice
Not much but every little bit can help
Too bad other places do not have that same sort of thing going on
Mine goes to the GOA
Another possibility:
Cut off the legs, sew up one end, and use for heavy-duty bags. I use them for sandbags, for storing tow chains and tire chains, and for some tools. Usually I’m cutting just below the hole in the knee, but longer ones have interesting possibilities.
Levi’s are dead to me. Wrangler all the way. And after reading the comments, no more of many of the companies’ products spoken about here. It’s one way we can truly support the 2nd is to support those companies the do also.
Texas Jeans. Made in the USA and $20 less than a pair of Levi’s, which I stopped wearing after the commercial showing the protester throwing a Molotov cocktail at the police. There are several other manufacturers that have USA made jeans. Sadly, few have button fly.