In the lead-up to the San Francesco 49er humiliating 33-10 defeat to the Philadelphia Eagles last Sunday, both teams jointly announced a massive fundraising drive for gun control. Gun-rights groups are enraged that the NFL would clear these storied franchises to reinforce the anti-gun lobby.
The two teams announced that they would be making donations to push for a full federal ban of bump fire stocks, suppressors, and, “armor piercing bullets.” The 49ers said that they would be partnering with organizations across cities like Oakland, Santa Clara, Los Angeles, New York City, and Portland to push gun control on both a local and national level. The nearly half-a-million-dollar donation would also be used for anti-gun public service announcements in those communities.
Explaining the highly political move, 49ers CEO, Jed York said, “It seems insane to me that a citizen can buy something like that,” concluding that a ban, “is something that is common sense.”
In response, gun-rights groups led the opposition to the 49ers’ gun-control activism. The National Rifle Association (NRA) went on to accuse the team of attacking Americans’ Second Amendment rights.
“Why kneel in disrespect to the flag when you can stand and trample the Constitution?” the NRA wrote on the Institute for Legislative Action’s website. “That appears to be the thinking, at least, of the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers football team.”
The NRA also said that the move would likely further upset many other NFL fans who are already angry about the national anthem protests, and the NFL kneelers, and pointed at the failure of a recent politicized movie “Miss Sloane” as proof that mixing gun control and entertainment is bad for business.
“Such anti-gun advocacy will almost certainly stir the ire of an already frustrated fan base who, as ratings indicate, want to keep politics out of sports,” the NRA further said in its post. “Perhaps the feeling is that because San Francisco has long been among the nation’s leading bastions of anti-gun fervor, this move would be seen as positive by a weakening fan base. But, we remind NFL leadership of the dangerous trap-door that all too many have failed to see. Put simply, ticket-paying fans have no interest in further incorporating divisive political issues into packaged entertainment, and this includes football and other sporting events.”
California gun rights group, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC,) also went on to say that “$500,000 is a lot of money that will go a long way in promoting their cause” and encouraged their membership to donate $49 in the fight against the team’s efforts.
“If the 49ers, who haven’t won a single game in the NFL this season, are any indication, attacking the Second Amendment should be a losing issue,” Richard Thomson, the spokesman for the group, had said in a message to the supporters. “But as we’ve seen, time and time again, the anti-gunners are only more emboldened with every passing day.”
Reader, I have a simple question for you: Why are we watching the NFL at all, when college ball can give us our sports fix? Why support an organization – the NFL – who has such disdain and derision for its own fan base?
