The Second Amendment Debate heats up
Gun Free Zones, Buffalo Wild Wings and the Second Amendment…
Buffalo Wild Wings has apparently decided to lose out on hundreds of thousands of dollars, to make a political statement. Obviously they didn’t take the Chick-Fil-A course on “Making political statements while improving your bottom line”.
Thousands of former patrons have bombarded the Restaurant’s facebook and other social media with their thoughts on the subject of Buffalo Wild Wings being a gun free zone.
This isn’t a new stance, but recent attacks on the Second Amendment brings the fight to this choice by upper level management.
It’s ridiculous really: does BWW not realize that a vast number of sports and UFC fans are happy gun owners and prefer not to be dragged into the political fray until it counts. Well now it will count. These sports loving, buffalo sauce flinging and gun toting, law-abiding citizens that once spent part of their paycheck every Monday or Friday or Saturday or Sunday on your Buffalo Wild Wings, no longer think it’s important to catch a game there.
There comes a time where one’s personal safety, or even JUST the perception of safety, becomes more important than selling out your standards. (Most Times this is the case)
At risk of sounding less like an investigative journalist and more like a bandwagoneer, I will admit, I stopped looking after 15 minutes, for a catalyst as to why B-Dubs (Buffalo Wild Wings) ever put the “Gun-Free Zone” signs up.
Be Prepared for a fight if you are Anti-Gun in the next couple of years. Most Pro-Gun people are hellbent on outing anti-gun policies, people and ideologies. If you can’t afford to have that laundry aired out, you ought to be on the other side of the debate. Trust me, I’ll do whatever I can to bring attention to the gun argument. I’m just one of millions who will, and I’m among the most tame of the group.
Buffalo Wild Wing’s PR and Market Research people aren’t very good at their jobs
What I didn’t do, was ignore the overwhelming support for concealed carry rights, as shown by former restaurant patrons.
Now on the surface one might be able to argue that this is not a second amendment argument because concealed carry is not an explicitly overt, guaranteed Constitutional right. But beneath the surface, the powers that be at Buffalo Wild Wings have not intelligently weighed their options here. While not overtly spelled out in the U.S. Constitution, the right to defend oneself is an underlying message of the entire document. Law Abiding citizens who choose to carry concealed and are permitted to by law, are vastly well trained, deterrents to crime (specifically gun crime) and have prevented many crimes in the recent past. For the management to exclude those who believe in the right to bear arms for defensive purposes, whether overtly or unknowingly, the Buffalo wild wings brand has diminished its appeal to mainstream America.
I would expect a precipitous drop in the sales and revenue figures in the coming months, with a huge impact certain to be factored in by the stock analysts who cover the stock of BWLD (the Buffalo Wild Wings NASDAQ ticker symbol). You can almost guarantee that within 4 months, the impact of losing a very large sub-demographic of their customers will have a definitive impact on their shareholder value. These aren’t the types of mistakes that sink companies, but they are the types of mistakes that require apologies, heavy PR restructuring and those which lose a lot of money that never needed to be lost.
It’s a Mistake for Buffalo Wild Wings to Designate itself as a Gun Free Zone
Let’s examine why this was a mistake:
Let’s assume that the most common reasons led to the political decision to disallow guns on premises; i.e. they have a political viewpoint they want to clarify. If this is the case, then they should be crossing their fingers that they have impressed whomever they intended to, because this will be a bumpy ride for the company.
If that wasn’t the catalyst, perhaps they are fearful of ending up in the news as a place where someone was killed or where gun violence took place. Considering that there has not been a large amount of Buffalo Wild Wings active shooter situations since their opening, they perhaps acted prematurely. It’s been proven in several studies that one major deterrent to mass public shootings is the chance that there are concealed carriers in that venue. Additionally, CCW holders are statistically proven to improve the odds that a mass shooting situation will end with less death than those situations without them involved.
Furthermore, it’s not about whether or not Buffalo Wild Wings wants something. It’s about what their customers will tolerate and support. Sure, you might impress some on the left of the gun control argument up front, but in the end, your brand caters vastly to those on the right side of the gun rights argument.
Judging by the way these viral “buycotts” usually go, there will be a substantial negative impact to the bottom line for Buffalo Wild Wings.
Judging by the reaction within the last day or two on just the social media pages of BDubs, this will not end well.
Judging by the massive influx in new gun purchasers, excellent media campaigns by gun industry groups and the recent upswing in sales of firearms; this situation is about to escalate for the worse for Buffalo Wild Wings.
I’m not advocating that you boycott Buffalo Wild Wings. But I am advocating that you understand the impact to the second amendment argument that this precedent set by BWW, has.
Your thoughts on Buffalo Wild Wings Gun Stance?
I would encourage you to voice your opinion with your wallet, on social sites and amongst friends.
Here are the facebook, twitter and youtube pages for BWW:
https://www.facebook.com/BuffaloWildWings
http://www.youtube.com/buffalowildwings
Here is the contact page for BDubs:
http://www.buffalowildwings.com/contact-us/
Don’t forget: Hooter’s has better birds, better wings and better sauce, not to mention they claim to be a Family Restaurant. (Except in TN, where guns are banned at Hooters too).
