Corporations have the responsibility to make their places of business safe from guns. They also have the influence to change policy and culture to improve our safety everywhere.
It's time to use our power by shopping with businesses that deserve our dollar because they stand up for our safety—and demand action from those that don't.
Our research team looked through publicly available material with an eye toward evaluating each business on their policies, statements, and actions pertaining to gun violence.
Each business started with a perfect score of 100 points and points were deducted for poor performance along the following benchmarks:
Some companies, like Amalgamated Bank, received bonus points for going above and beyond their peers by having exceptionally strong policies and statements or by reinvesting in the communities they serve.
We believe that consumers have unique leverage to push the businesses they patronize to live up to their stated corporate values and give back to the communities they serve. Boycotts can be part of that activism, but it’s equally important to make your voice heard by the companies you would like to see do better on this issue.
We know that numerous economic and social factors mean not everybody has the privilege of shopping their values, that’s why we encourage Americans who frequent low-rated businesses to visit our Take Action page and push those businesses to do better.
After the devastating mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas in 2019, Guns Down America spearheaded a campaign urging Walmart to end gun sales and ban the open carry of firearms in their stores. Thousands of people shared our efforts online, delivered letters to the managers of their local stores, and rallied with us at Walmart locations across the country. After a month of concerted campaigning, Walmart announced that they were updating their firearm policies to end the sale of handguns, end the sale of certain types of ammunition used in assault-style weapons, and ban open carry in their stores.
This victory demonstrated that even the biggest American corporations have no choice but to listen to us when we rally together and demonstrate that we represent a majority of their customers. And these policies can have a major impact on public safety. One 2020 study found that when Walmart limited their gun sales between 1994 and 2005, counties with Walmarts experienced a significant reduction in suicide rates. We are the majority, and when we work together we can save lives.
These businesses were selected for a variety of factors, including market share, number of locations, customer demographics, and more.
Business Must Act is an ongoing project, which means more businesses will be added and scores will be adjusted as more retailers begin to embrace public safety policies.
Business Must Act is focused on retailers with brick-and-mortar stores, because these public spaces are where the dangers of everyday gun violence are most acutely felt by employees and customers alike. While we opted to exclude Amazon for this reason, we included the Amazon-owned Whole Foods Market.
American businesses, particularly consumer-facing retailers that interact with customers on a daily basis, have a civic responsibility to keep their customers and employees safe from gun violence. While most of the companies on our scorecard do not directly sell firearms or ammunition, their stores are not immune from the impact of gun violence.
We’re asking these businesses to take four simple steps:
