Women’s Group Reacts to Visa’s Refusal to Block Sales of Assault Weapons
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, March 9, 2018
CONTACT: Yasmina Dardari | yasmina@unbendablemedia.com | (407) 922-8149
Women’s Group Reacts to Visa’s Refusal to Block Sales of Assault Weapons
Yesterday, in reaction to protests outside Visa’s Headquarters in Foster City, California, Visa issued a statement saying “We do not believe Visa should be in the position of setting restrictions on the sale of lawful goods and services,” rejecting customer calls for the financial transactions giant to block sales from retailers who sell assault weapons.
In response to Visa’s comment, Nita Chaudhary, Co-founder of UltraViolet, a national women’s group that was one of the organizers of yesterday’s protest, issued the following statement:
“Visa’s refusal to consider customer demands to help curb the epidemic of gun violence in this country by blocking sales of assault weapons is shameful. Visa’s cowardice and corporate greed comes at a time when numerous companies are stepping up on guns. With Congress’ failure to enact reasonable gun safety measures, companies across the country have stepped up, raising age limits to purchase guns or ending the sales of assault weapons entirely. These companies recognize the dangers that assault weapons pose and understand that they have an ethical duty to take action and help protect customers and the American public at large.
“Visa’s claim that they do not believe in setting restrictions on the sale of ‘lawful goods and services’ rings hollow, as the company already blocks the sales of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. We will keep pushing Visa to prioritize lives over profits.“
Yesterday, UltraViolet members along with Courage Campaign and Daily Kos delivered 144,000 petition signatures urging Visa to take action to curb gun violence and block the sale of assault weapons. UltraViolet also delivered a letter penned by survivors of domestic violence. The letter notes that a history of domestic or dating violence is one of the key characteristics of those who have carried out mass shootings in the United States.
For more information, or for interview with an UltraViolet spokesperson, please contact Yasmina Dardari at (407) 922-8149 or by email at yasmina@unbendablemedia.com.
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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.