BELLEVUE, WA – Breaking news that a San Francisco-based business software company is dictating to certain retailers what they can or cannot sell at the risk of being unable to use its software was slammed today by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms as a form of “corporate coercion and social bigotry.”
The Washington Post reported that Salesforce.com advised retailers such as Camping World to stop selling certain types of semiautomatic rifles and ammunition magazines or face losing the use of the company’ business software.
“This is outrageous,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Here are companies selling perfectly legal products according to the requirements of federal law, and just because those products happen to be a certain class of firearms and accessories, the companies are essentially facing being black-balled. Our friends at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, an industry umbrella group, rightly call this ‘corporate policy virtue signaling.’”
According to the published report, the new Salesforce.com policy “bars customers that sell a range of firearms – including automatic and semiautomatic – from using its e-commerce technology. The policy also precludes customers from selling some firearm parts, such as “magazines capable of accepting more than 10 rounds” and “multi-burst trigger devices.”
“Some people may think this is a great idea,” Gottlieb observed, “but if it is allowed now because the targeted product is a particular type of firearm, what’s to prevent this or another company from deciding sometime in the future to essentially blacklist another product it doesn’t like? Suddenly, we’re not talking about an affront to the Second Amendment and millions of law-abiding firearms owners, we’re talking about possible restraint of trade.
“When social justice warriors become corporate bullies, maybe it’s time for Congress to step in and provide some adult supervision,” he added. “We’re disturbed by this report, and we hope the software company takes a deep breath and re-thinks this idea. Denying an essential service to a company because it sells some products that may be offensive to some people should be setting off alarms throughout corporate America.
“Your business may not be affected today,” Gottlieb noted, “but there are a lot of tomorrows over the horizon, and this sort of thing can become insidious really fast.”