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If you own a firearm, H&R Block considers you a second-class citizen.
Each year, H&R Block offers an "affinity program" to members of various organizations. For each member who has his taxes done at H&R Block, they offer to donate a small percentage of the fee to that customer's organization.
In 2002, H&R Block offered this deal to members of the National Rifle Association (see advertisement). After a number of NRA members signed up to take advantage of the program, H&R Block, suddenly and without notice, broke its agreement. Why? Because a few small but vocal political pressure groups threatened H&R Block with a day of picketing. These groups insisted that NRA members were not deserving of the same benefits routinely offered to other membership organizations. Why? Because, heaven forbid, we owned guns! Threatened with a single day of picketing at 50 branches, H&R Block's response to this hate campaign was both spineless and pathetic. They caved in to the shrill demands of the gun-banners, whimpering, "we are dissolving the... agreement to remove ourselves from a [social] debate we don't belong in and to prevent outside groups from using H&R Block to promote their agendas." But that's precisely what their cowardly appeasement accomplished. Within days, the gun-banners were issuing press releases gloating over their "tremendous victory over the gun lobby" and claiming that "H&R Block now understands that, by agreeing to this royalty scheme, it was furthering the reckless political agenda of the NRA's leadership." Ironically, none of the donated money would have gone to political programs. The lobbying arm of the NRA is a completely distinct organization that does not share any funds with the NRA proper, and was never involved in the affinity deal. The H&R Block donations would have gone solely to membership services, where they would have been used for safety education, hunting programs, competitive events, law enforcement training, and similar activities benefiting hobbyists, hunters, students, and gun safety organizations. What H&R Block did was not just to show contempt for gun owners -- they caved in to hate and bigotry. And acquiescence to bigotry can never be tolerated.
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