FedEx has used the slogan “The World on Time” in varying capacities since 1994. Yet its decision, announced Tuesday, to end a program that gave discounts to business members of the National Rifle Association arguably arrived eight months late.
A spokesman for the shipping and logistics company confirmed to HuffPost the NRA is no longer associated with any FedEx marketing programs. The news comes as a quiet update to its position in February, when it decided against severing its marketing relationship with the firearm advocacy group despite mounting pressure following the Feb. 14 mass shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 people dead.
Numerous major companies ended their loyalty programs with the NRA at that time, including Delta, United, the car-rental firms Enterprise (which operates Enterprise, National and Alamo), Avis, Budget and Hertz, along with more than a dozen others.
FedEx painted its latest move as strictly a business decision motivated by low shipping volume. It noted that the NRA is one of more than 100 organizations affected by the discount program’s cessation.
Still, the announcement comes after a gunman in Pittsburgh shot and killed 11 worshippers at a synagogue on Saturday. And just days earlier, another apparent hate crime enabled by a gun occurred in Kentucky, where a gunman shot and killed two African-Americans at a grocery story after failing to gain entry to a predominantly black church.