Protest group formed in wake of Orlando nightclub shooting occupies lobby of one of the largest corporate shareholders of gun company stock

Dozens of gay activists began a campaign of civil disobedience against gun companies and their investors on Monday by holding a “die-in” at the headquarters of BlackRock, one of the largest corporate shareholders of gun companies’ stock.



Holding placards bearing photos of some of the victims of gun violence, protesters occupied the lobby of BlackRock’s headquarters in midtown Manhattan for almost an hour on Monday afternoon demanding that the investment firm divest from gun stocks.

The Gays Against Guns protesters, who have said they are prepared to break the law to force action on gun control, accused BlackRock of being part of a “corporate machine profiting from gun death”.

Dressed in white T-shirts spray painted with the “Gays Against Guns” slogan, the protest group – formed in the wake of the massacre of 49 people at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando earlier this summer – held placards stating: “Gun$ sell. People die. $tock soars.”

BlackRock held $8.4m worth of Smith & Wesson shares and $7.7m worth of Sturm, Ruger & Co stock, according to the latest annual report of its Aerospace & Defence ETF. In the report the firm states: “The leisure products industry, which is how firearms manufacturers are categorized, contributed meaningfully to index performance.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest BlackRock’s report referring to guns as ‘leisure products’. Photograph: BlackRock

Duncan Osborne, one of the organizers of the Guns Against Guns movement, said this was why the group had chosen to target BlackRock rather than other investors in gun stocks. “This company was singing the praises of its gun stocks in its annual report, that’s amoral, it’s wrong,” he said.

BlackRock declined to comment. In a previous statement, the firm said it held the gun companies’ stock on behalf of third-party investors in its US aerospace and defense fund, and pointed out that it had other portfolios in which clients can choose to avoid investment in firearms, tobacco and alcohol manufacturers.

“BlackRock values diversity and has a history of supporting the LGBT community,” the spokesman said. “We condemn senseless acts of violence in any form including the recent tragedy in Orlando.”

After BlackRock refused to provide a representative to listen to the protesters concerns, they performed a “die-in” – 12 people lying on the floor to represent the dozen people killed with weapons including a Smith & Wesson MP assault rifle at a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado, in 2012. Outside BlackRock’s office on 52nd Street protesters dropped blood red-dyed popcorn around the white chalk-outline of Aurora victims.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest People take part in a demonstration by the group Gays Against Guns at BlackRock headquarters in the Manhattan. Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters

“Here is a company whose CEO, Laurence Fink, prides himself on their socially conscious investment yet comes right out and tells clients that mass shootings worked to their financial advantage,” GAG campaigner Cathy Marino-Thomas, said. “They’re smart enough to acknowledge they profit from massacres but can’t find a way to unload those stocks? That’s amoral.”

Organizers of the GAG collective, which has more than 300 members in New York and chapters in nine other cities across the country, said their next targets would be companies that partner with the National Rifle Association (NRA).

John Grauwiler, a 45-year-old New York City schoolteacher and cofounder of GAG, said: “It’s us or them. End your relationship with the death business or the LGBTQ community ends its relationship with you.”

Companies that offer discounts to NRA members include all of the major car rental companies, Visa, and the insurance firm MetLife.

“These companies give discounts to NRA members and we want them to know that you can court the LGBT dollar, but if you get into bed with the NRA, we’re going to fucking break up with you,” said Ken Kidd, an administrator and veteran LGBT activist who took to the streets as part of Act Up and Queer Nation in the 80s. “They will know we are a force to be reckoned with.”