WhatFinger


Before Target, at least five other national brands had fallen to the Moms: Starbucks, Jack-in-the-Box, Chipotle, Chili's and Sonic

Bloomberg's puppet Moms 'Stroller Jam' Target into requesting customers disarm



Less than one month after it was targeted by the most recent front group in former New York City mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's employ, Target has executed an artful cave with its July 2 plea for its customers to disarm.
"As you've likely seen in the media, there has been a debate about whether guests in communities that permit 'open carry' should be allowed to bring firearms into Target stores," wrote interim Target CEO John R. Mulligan, a long-time executive for the country's second largest department store chain. The debate in the media was not much of a debate. From what I could tell, the last edition of the Bloomberg Follies, a group calling itself "Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America," picks a...well, target, demands that they ban guns on their premises and the mainstream media beats the drum until the Moms get their way. Just to let the company know they meant business, Moms launched the hashtag: #OffTarget. #shudders When the store chain gave in, Moms rewarded it with a new hashtag: #BackOnTarget. #splendid

Support Canada Free Press


Before Target, at least five other national brands had fallen to the Moms: Starbucks, Jack-in-the-Box, Chipotle, Chili's and Sonic. Of those, Sonic is the strange one because everyone I have ever seen is a drive-in and walk-up without a dining room. In what had to be a shock, the day after the Mom's announced their campaign, a loaded gun was found in the toy section of a Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Imagine the thrill the Moms had, when the day before their foundress Shannon Watts said: "Target is a central part of the lives of American moms--we expect to be safe and secure when we wheel our kids around in the store's red shopping carts." Then, the next day someone found a loaded gun alongside the Lincoln Logs and the Hello Kitty purses. Interestingly, Texas became the center of gravity for the Target campaign. A gun rights group Open Carry Texas held open carry protests by carrying in the store parking lots. Then, all through June, Moms members showed up with strollers to troll customers for petition signatures and disrupt the business flow--a practice they call the "Stroller Jam." As local Target store managers asked Moms members to leave their stores and parking lots, the Moms members escalated with a "Stroller Jam" at the June 13 Target shareholder meeting in Dallas. Who knows what was the final straw? It is clear that since 97 percent of Target's customers are mom's with strollers, the company's leadership was not in a bold move. Although at $60-a-share, it is trading at more than twice its book value and a little less than twice its revenues per share, the stock is down 15 percent for the year. Mulligan took over a company buffeted by two massive cyberthefts of debit and credit card information and flat growth. Certainly, the interim CEO was looking for an out when he wrote: "Our approach has always been to follow local laws, and of course, we will continue to do so. But starting today we will also respectfully request that guests not bring firearms to Target--even in communities where it is permitted by law." A respectful request? It seems like something short of a demand. My biggest problem is Mulligan's next point: "This is a complicated issue, but it boils down to a simple belief: Bringing firearms to Target creates an environment that is at odds with the family-friendly shopping and work experience we strive to create." How many times do we have to endure the tragedy of a spree shooter going berserk in a so-called "Gun Free Zone?" Tell you what, no spree shooter, robber, terrorist or gang banger was going to try anything crazy during an Open Carry Texas protest. Methinks, in fact, those stores were the safest places on earth as a dozen or so Texans in the parking lot with a long gun slung on their shoulder. Upon the peace treaty agreed to between Target and Moms Demand Action, OCT said they will move on. "While this is not a ban on legally possessed firearms in its stores, we will continue to honor our months long policy of not taking long arms into Target stores or any other business," according to its statement. "Time and time again, businesses that have asked guests not to bring legally possessed, self-defense firearms into their establishments have seen their employees and customers victimized by criminals preying on the openly defenseless." Guns save lives and allow Americans to protect themselves, their loved ones and their property. The opponents to gun rights are waging a war against a rival culture and political voting bloc. It is not about safety. It is about leveraging power. Yet, while with other issues, we can accept such behavior as politics as usual, removing guns and gun owners from the public square endangers us all.


View Comments

Neil W. McCabe -- Bio and Archives

Neil W. McCabe is the editor of Human Event’s “Guns & Patriots” e-letter and was a senior reporter at the Human Events newspaper. McCabe deployed with the Army Reserve to Iraq for 15 months as a combat historian. For many years, he was a reporter and photographer for “The Pilot,” Boston’s Catholic paper. He was also the editor of two free community papers, “The Somerville (Mass.) News and “The Alewife (North Cambridge, Mass.).”


Sponsored