UltraViolet, Courage Campaign and Daily Kos Take on Visa, Mastercard, Others, Delivering a Petition with Over 144,000 Signatures
Foster City, CA — This Thursday, March 8th, activists from Courage Campaign, UltraViolet, and Daily Kos will hold a rally and press conference outside Visa’s headquarters in Foster City, demanding major credit card companies like Visa and Mastercard stop doing business with retailers who sell assault weapons. The groups will also deliver over 144,000 signatures to Visa, arguing that credit card companies have the power and responsibility to slow the sales of assault weapons, bump stocks, extended magazines, and other weapons of mass murder.
WHO: Members of Courage Campaign, Ultraviolet, and Daily Kos
WHAT: Petition delivery telling Visa to help end gun violence
WHEN: Thursday, March 8, 11:00AM – 12:00PM
WHERE: 900 Metro Center Blvd, Foster City, CA 94404
Since the Parkland School shooting, 24 companies have cut ties with the NRA. Payment processors like PayPal and Apple Pay have already banned the purchase of firearms for people using their services.
“Parkland, FL. Las Vegas, NV. San Bernardino, CA. Sutherland Springs, TX. Newtown, CT. The thing all these locations have in common is mass shootings conducted with weapons of war, meant to take as many human lives as possible,” explained Eddie Kurtz, Executive Director of Courage Campaign. “The Republican Congress is once again failing to act to limit access to these weapons, but Visa, Mastercard, and other financial services companies have the power to act where Congress won’t. They have a responsibility to respond to the tens of thousands of people who are demanding concrete action to limit gun violence.”
SEE COURAGE CAMPAIGN’S PETITION HERE: http://act.couragecampaign.org/sign/cc_assaultweapons/
“While Congress lines its pockets with money from the NRA, children are being gunned down on a regular basis,” said Nita Chaudhary, Co-founder of UltraViolet. “Visa quite literally has the power to save lives and their customers are demanding it. It is now up to major credit card companies to take matters into their own hands by blocking the sales of assault weapons using their credit cards.”
SEE ULTRAVIOLET’S PETITION HERE: https://act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/cc-assault-weapons/
UltraViolet will also deliver a letter penned by survivors of domestic violence making the same ask to Visa. A history of domestic or dating violence is one of the key characteristics of those who have carried out mass shootings and other acts of terror using guns in the United States.
“We’re calling on Visa to join companies like Apple, Paypal, and Square and stop processing payments from retailers that sell weapons of mass murder,” said Mara Schechter, Campaign Director at Daily Kos.“Bump stocks and assault weapons like AR-15s have one purpose: to kill a lot of people at once. Visa can quickly and easily block sales of these killing machines; in fact, it has a responsibility to do so.”
SEE DAILY KOS’ PETITION HERE: https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/letters/sign-to-email-credit-card-companies-refuse-to-process-payments-from-retailers-selling-weapons-of-mass-murder
CourageCampaign.org fights for a more progressive California and country. We are an online community powered by more than 1.4 million members.
UltraViolet is an online community of over 1,000,000 women and men who want to take collective action to expose and fight sexism in the public sector, private sector and the media. Find out more at weareultraviolet.org.