What do you think about Apple & the NRA?

Apple General
#1

Activists Call for Boycott of Apple

I’m very anti-gun and pro gun control. The general populace are too stupid and violent and unpredictable to be trusted with guns. I’m not opposed to those who pass stringent requirements based on need for a gun, having a gun, with restrictions on their use, but I hate the idea of Australia ever becoming like America where you can walk into Walmart and walk out with a semi-auto and a bag full of handguns.

Apple are also really dodgy when it comes to taxes. I’m conflicted because I can’t not use my computer and I’d rather not use computers at all than use Windows on PC.

How do you feel about all this?

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#2

I’d hope that if Apple or Amazon remove the NRA app from their app stores it’s because of a violation of the current terms of service. If not then I’m afraid I don’t support their removal until the terms of service are amended in such a way that the app would become in breach.

But, yes, I would fully support Apple amending its terms of service to make it become unavailable. There would be a flow on effect to other apps because of that no doubt.

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#3

Noticed their name on the NRA list of supporters the other day. Think it’s time that support stops.

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#4

Agreed. The insanity that is gun use in the USA has to stop, and companies like Apple would go a long way to influence that. The kids over there are standing up for whats right (and sane)… Apple needs to pay attention to them. Profits arent everything.

#5

As the American on the forums:

Very disappointed in Apple. Hoping they follow Delta and others putting lives over profits.

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#6

Stopping people from owning military weapons seems a much better idea to me than arming teachers… I cannot imagine my 5yo’s Prep teacher carrying a gun. Or if she did - being able to use it if required. All it would lead to is more deaths as the guns undoubtedly fall into the wrong hands.

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#7

In all honesty do we see Apple putting anything before profits? I would sincerely like to see them to but the cynic in me suspects it won’t happen.

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#8

I wonder if things like the morality of big corporate tax evasion (eg Apple, Nike etc) is going to start pushing them to reconsider the way they do business.

On this moral topic specifically - I could see Tim making the right call, though probably only with more pressure.

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#9

Apple do champion many socially progressive causes in areas including:

  • Environment
  • Workers rights, particularly in countries that host manufacturing organisations
  • LGBTQIA Issues
  • Education

Let’s hope they decide to champion a safer legal regime for the control of the sale and use of guns in the USA, and ditch any connection with the NRA.

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#10

My union has a local at Apple (and we are a small union, only about 240 people). Apple has been very good about Labor Management Agreements with us. There was no question about our right to form a union at Apple, collectively bargain, or sign an LMA.

In addition Apple has very much actively recruited union members. I’ve had interviews with Apple about three times over the past few years, and I was just informed of a new opening. So far, it hasn’t been the right fit (I think they want to some how fit me into a teaching role, as I am a teacher by education, and a video editor by hobby), but what store to put me at, and teaching what seems to be the question.

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#11

I hate the idea of Australia ever becoming like America where people base their opinions on issues solely on what is on the news without understanding the far greater complexity of the issues. Oh wait…

#12

Yeah, or making snap judgements about people and their depth of knowledge and understanding of complex issues…

…oh wait.

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#13

shrug Yes, I allow the socially-biased ABC (AU) to make my decisions for me in most matters. Hence the corp tax comment. As for the gun issue - America has a problem, and having 4 times as many guns per person compared to the next closest country can in my blinkered view only be part of the problem. The NRA is one of the bigger parts.

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#14

America has a cultish worship of the firearm. I grew up in New Mexico and Texas. I’ve seen it up close and personally. My high school bully went home after we had a fight in math class, got his father’s gun, left a note detailing how it was either everyone else or him, and he decided it was him. So he shot himself in the head. This was 1999, and it has gotten no better. Just worse.

America has a gun problem. It’s an addiction. A religious obsession. And until Americans can disentangle themselves from thinking of the firearm as sacred, no real reform is possible.

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#15

They won’t.

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#16

I’m so sorry to hear that, @kionon :frowning: That must have been awful, on so many levels!

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#17

A religion you say?

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#18

Guns are one of the reasons I’ve spent most of my adult life living outside of the US. Korea, Japan, Australia, very briefly back in Texas for grad school, then back to Japan. My absolute need for decent universal healthcare is another.

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#19

Some of us have had first hand experience of Americans and their guns, and have held this view from long before school shootings became news.

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#20

School shootings have been news for at least 20 years. I should know, I was in high school during Columbine. It was just before or just after the incident I described up above. So for me, maybe as a small child, I had no particular view of American gun culture insanity, but I certainly did from my teen years on.