BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) and Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) will urge members and supporters, and other gun rights organizations, to join in the boycott of ConocoPhillips and subsidiaries Union 76 and Phillips 66 gas stations, and Kendall Motor Oil, announced Tuesday by the National Rifle Association.
The boycott is in response to ConocoPhillips’ federal lawsuit to block a new state law in Oklahoma that protects employees of companies who have firearms in their private vehicles, even when parked on company parking lots. That law was passed earlier this year after the Weyerhaeuser company fired several employees who had guns in their cars, apparently in preparation for an upcoming hunting season opener.
“Law-abiding American firearm owners should show their outrage at ConocoPhillips the only way that such corporate monoliths ever get the message, by lowering their bottom line,” said SAF Founder Alan M. Gottlieb. “If ConocoPhillips thinks it is okay to act against the civil rights of gun owners, then gun owners can take action against the profits of that company, and its stockholders.”
“With fall hunting seasons just over the horizon across the nation,” added CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron, “gun owners can fill up their tanks at someone else’s pump. That amounts to millions of gallons of gasoline that will not be sold to sportsmen and women, and tens of millions of dollars in revenue that will go to a competitor. We’re also encouraging our members to have their cars, trucks and SUVs serviced elsewhere, and to not even patronize gas marts selling Conoco, Union 76 or Phillips 66 products.”
“Law-abiding American firearms owners have had it with social bigots,” Gottlieb observed. “It is time for the firearms community to stand united against the only kind of prejudice that is still fashionable in this country and that’s the prejudice against people who own guns. ConocoPhillips insists its federal lawsuit to block the new Oklahoma law is in the interest of safety. They are implying that anyone, including their own employees, who owns a firearm, is a potential killer. This kind of bigotry is insidious and inexcusable, and just as wrong as if it were practiced against racial minorities or religious groups.”