Gays Against Guns Raids BlackRock Demands Drop the Gun Stock

Gays Against Guns staged a dramatic, highly visible, and "in your face" protest at BlackRock Capital Management on August 15 at BlackRock's Headquarters in Manhattan.

The in-person demonstration at noontime on a Monday captured the attention of BlackRock officers as they attempted to enter and leave the building for lunch and served as a follow-up to a ‘thunderclap’ blast of emails sent simultaneously from approximately 200 GAG members from different chapters across America to the top three executives in charge of BlackRock.

Gays Against Guns is focusing on BlackRock for an extended series of actions of every sort because of its BlackRock’s investment in the "Chain of Death" whose links connect: investors and manufacturers, the NRA and other gun industry lobbying organizations, and NRA Puppet politicians in Congress, all joined in a bloody chain of profiteering through death. BlackRock is one of the top three shareholders of the gun manufacturers Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Co as of 2015. Also, as Tim Murphy, one of GAG's founders and its media coordinator said: "[BlackRock is] the largest asset management company in the country, and every time there’s a mass shooting, since 2012, they buy more and more stocks in guns, knowing that the death business is good business for them. They are literally profiting off the backs of dead people." The protest began as a contingent of about 50 "GAG'ers" - the raucous, chanting

and t-shirt wearing GAG activists - invaded the atrium of BlackRock holding large placards and railing against BlackRock’s financing of the murder industry. GAGtivists distributed nearly 400 flyers to BlackRock employees and other tenants in the building and staged a die-in inside the corporate lobby before being escorted to the street by NYPD.

Then, on the sidewalk in front of the BlackRock World Headquarters, GAG initiated a loud, boisterous moving picket line for about a half-hour. The climax of the picket was still another dramatic die-in that offered a nod to the 2012 Aurora movie-theater massacre in which one of the weapons used was manufactured by Smith and Wesson: GAG scattered stage-blood soaked popcorn from movie theatre popcorn boxes and drew crime-scene style outlines around fallen GAG “victim's” bodies on the ground.

GAG's "Human Beings": silent, white-clad, and veiled participants who each represent a specific person killed by gun violence are also a deeply moving staple of GAG protests. Moving somberly and as a group, each Human Being holds a small placard with the photo and the name of the person they are representing. In this protest, the Human Beings each represented a victim of the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting which occured in July, 2012 and stood stalwart over the die-in on the street.

This protest, the first of more planned against BlackRock, has captured enormous attention in both the mainstream press and from the Business community world-wide; several press links appear below.

Want to be a part of the Action? Come to GAG’s next big meeting, or join the GAG Action Committee!

The NowThis video network featured a story on GAG's BlackRock protest. See below.

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