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Hearing aid company ends relationship with the NRA

20 corporations have cut ties with the gun lobby in the last week.

Convention goers look at MGI firearms at the143rd NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis, Indiana on April 25, 2014. CREDIT: AFP PHOTO / Karen BLEIER
Convention goers look at MGI firearms at the143rd NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis, Indiana on April 25, 2014. CREDIT: AFP PHOTO / Karen BLEIER

A prominent hearing aid company said Saturday it would be ending its relationship with the NRA.

Minnesota-based Starkey Hearing said on Twitter that it will not renew its discount program with the gun lobby. Since at least 2007, the company has partnered with the NRA to offer discounted hearing aids and “free consultations” for its members. A representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“We will be asking them to remove our information from their website,” the company said on Twitter.

Starkey is just the latest in a growing list of companies distancing themselves from the NRA after the Parkland shooting. After ThinkProgress reported Tuesday a list of more than two dozen companies doing business with the gun lobby, the nation’s largest privately held bank, First National Bank of Omaha, said it would stop issuing the NRA Visa card. On Thursday, Enterprise Holdings, which operates three major car rental companies, said it would stop offering a discount to NRA members. And on Friday, security software company Symantec, home security company SimpliSafe, auto insurer MetLifecar rentals Avis and Budgetmoving companies Allied and North American Van lines, and software company Wild Apricot, and car buying service TrueCar also cut ties.

On Saturday morning, Delta and United Airlines also said they would no longer be offering discounted flights to NRA members traveling to the group’s annual convention, scheduled for May in Dallas.

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In a statement Saturday night, the NRA called the corporations’ decisions “a shameful display of political and civic cowardice.” 

“Let it be absolutely clear,” the statement continued. “The loss of a discount with neither scare nor distract one single NRA member from our mission to stand and defend the individual freedoms that have always made America the greatest nation in the world.”