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  • 2018-09-10 (xsd:date)
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  • Did Levi Strauss Announce a Partnership with Michael Bloomberg to Advocate for Gun Control? (en)
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  • In September 2018, several conservative web sites and the National Rifle Association (NRA) reported that Levi Strauss & Co., producer of the iconic Levi's brand of jeans, had partnered with businessman and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg to attack gun rights. The NRA's Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) declared that Levi Strauss had left behind their rugged image and would be working with a billionaire oligarch in an effort to empower the government to trample upon the fundamental rights of the American people. The conservative LifeZette website similarly wrote that: On 5 September the NRA-ILA posted a meme on Facebook asserting that Levi Strauss turns their back on Second Amendment supporting customers: It's true that Levi Strauss did announce in September 2018 they would be partnering with Everytown for Gun Safety, a non-profit organization that advocates for gun control measures and was founded and is heavily funded by Michael Bloomberg. However, the accounts highlighted above included subjective (and sometimes misleading) characterizations of the company's efforts rather than objective facts. For example, Levi Strauss CEO Chip Bergh wrote that the company was stepping up [their] support for gun violence prevention, not that they were working to attack gun rights. The latter characterization came from LifeZette and the NRA, not Levi Strauss itself. Similarly, the NRA's Facebook meme claimed that the company had [turned] their back on Second Amendment supporting customers, but none of the actions announced in September 2018 related specifically to customers rather than to the issue of gun violence in general. (In 2016, the company requested that customers not bring firearms into their stores as a safety measure.) Finally, LifeZette wrote that Levi Strauss would be donating money towards anti-Second Amendment activities, but that is not at all how the project was characterized by Levis Strauss themselves, whose CEO stipulated that he did not favor repealing the Second Amendment. In a blog post on 4 September 2018, Levi Strauss announced three actions in support of gun violence prevention: In an op-ed column for Fortune magazine, Bergh addressed the potential concerns of gun-owning customers and stressed that he was not advocating getting rid of the Second Amendment and did not believe gun owners were irresponsible: On the whole, the claims made by the NRA and certain conservative web sites about Levi Strauss & Co's newly-announced gun control activities were largely accurate and based on real announcements made by the company. However, these reports were colored, and at times distorted, by subjective characterizations and misleading descriptions of what Levi Strauss had actually announced. (en)
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