salon | If you want to understand the fight the gun safety movement faces in
trying to win over gun extremists in red states, my experience this
summer will be instructive.
Moms Demand Action, a group formed
after the Sandy Hook shooting to crack down on gun violence, began
pressuring the Kroger supermarket chain to prohibit “open carry” in its
stores after gun extremists used Kroger stores to demonstrate their
“rights.” Gun laws are lax in many states, and it can be legal to openly
carry a firearm with no training, and, in some cases, no background
checks. The Kroger campaign is the most recent in a string of corporate
responsibility efforts in which mothers, flanked by other gun violence
prevention advocates, have asked companies to tighten gun policies,
arguing that the businesses have an obligation to keep their customers
safe.
Of course, gun extremists did not respond kindly to the
Kroger campaign. What follows is a recounting of their disturbing
tactics, from the shocking intimidation and harassment of unsuspecting
commenters on Kroger’s Facebook page to right-wing media propaganda that
disingenuously portrayed Kroger as being allies of the gun extremists.
Secret
Facebook groups such as “People Who Were Blocked by Moms Demand Action
Demand Action Now” — which has well over a thousand members —
disseminated gun rights propaganda and helped orchestrate attacks on
individuals commenting on Kroger’s page. Some gun nuts combed the
profile pages of people commenting in support of gun reform, harvested
personal photos of them and Photoshopped them to include obscene or
humiliating comments, before reposting the photos on Kroger’s page, or
on other social media sites. Because Kroger frequently bans users who
post that kind of content, the gun extremists created disposable fake
accounts — sometimes using the name and profile photo of an opponent— to
quickly dump posts without being held accountable.
