With 96 Americans killed with guns on the average day, and murderers targeting our schools, churches and concerts, the American people are getting fed up with inaction on the part of our politicians. Although the majority of Americans favor stronger gun control measures, they never seem to happen. This is in large part due to the actions of a single organization, the National Rifle Association. 
 
 Historically, the NRA supported hunting, marksmanship, safety training – and common sense gun laws. But a faction takeover of its leadership in 1977 brought into power a group with extreme views, which have now become the NRA party line. 
 
 Many members of the NRA don’t support its more extreme policies. For example, 74% of NRA members support requiring background checks for anyone purchasing a gun, and 71% support prohibiting people on the terrorist watch list from purchasing guns – positions that are the opposite of the NRA stance. So why do they remain members? One reason is financial – NRA members receive valuable discounts on things like insurance and hotel stays. 
 
 The myriad of discounts offered to NRA members by corporations are listed on the membership benefits page on the NRA site. These partners of the NRA include MetLife, LifeLock, eHealth, Norton Security, Allied Movers, NorthAmerican Van Lines, Hertz, Avis, and the First National Bank of Omaha. Indeed, the NRA touts the many special discounts as number two in its list of reasons to join the organization, and stresses the “access to hundreds of dollars in savings.” 
 
 These corporate partnerships not only help the NRA attract and retain members, but also provide funds for the NRA that help fuel its extremist agenda. 
 
 It’s time to tell companies that it is no longer acceptable for them to be associated with the NRA. Let’s send a message to the NRA membership benefits partners they must end sever their relationships with the NRA. 
 
 This petition is aimed at 25 of the companies involved in the NRA membership benefits program. This is because 25 is the limit for a Change.org petition. Let’s start with these 25, and then go after the others later. 
 
 In addition to signing and sharing this petition, please look at our Google document which lists all of the partner companies and contact information for them, and consider also reaching out to the companies directly to show your displeasure. 

 In this Feb. 22, 2018, photo, Dana Loesch, spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), at National Harbor, Md. She is poised, photogenic... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this Feb. 22, 2018, photo, Dana Loesch, spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), at National Harbor, Md. She is poised, photogenic and articulate _ the new public face of an organization that long has been associated with older... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this Feb. 22, 2018, photo, Dana Loesch, spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), at National Harbor, Md. She is poised, photogenic and articulate _ the new public face of an organization that long has been associated with older... (Associated Press) In this Feb. 22, 2018, photo, Dana Loesch, spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), at National Harbor, Md. She is poised, photogenic... (Associated Press) 
 
 CHICAGO (AP) — Dana Loesch is the new public face of the National Rifle Association, an organization long associated with older white men. 
 
 At 39, she's poised, photogenic and a skilled public speaker, yet she's not softening the message of the NRA as it becomes an increasingly active voice in the nation's culture wars, with positions on everything from immigration to the media. 
 
 In the aftermath of the shooting deaths of 17 people, mostly students, at a Florida high school, it's Loesch who has been the NRA's main messenger. 
 
 The NRA dispatched Loesch last week to a CNN town hall, where she was questioned by students and parents from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the site of the Valentine's Day shooting. Often brash and combative, Loesch was measured and even-tempered, though she was booed when she left the stage. 
 
 Charlie Sykes, a longtime conservative radio host who has been critical of the NRA, said Loesch's skill is communicating with a broad range of Americans while retaining the ultra-conservative base built by Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president and CEO since 1991. 
 
 "Imagine Wayne LaPierre sitting in that seat and you realize the significance of Dana," Sykes said. "She can bring the hot sauce without having that persona" of an angry white man. 
 
 Even before taking over as NRA spokeswoman last year, Loesch had a robust conservative following, cultivated on social media — she has more than 46 million Twitter followers — and through years of television and radio appearances, including on her own radio program, "The Dana Show." 
 
 The day after the televised town hall, she was back in her more familiar mode, speaking to a far friendlier audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington. Loesch defiantly defended NRA's 5 million members, who she said "will not be gaslighted into thinking that we're responsible for a tragedy that we had nothing to do with." 
 
 And, her voice dripping with condescension, she addressed journalists from the mainstream media, who she said "love mass shootings" because "crying white mothers are ratings gold." 
 
 Her criticism of the media recalled an NRA video last summer in which she attacked The New York Times in a way that some on the right and the left feared could incite violence. In the video, Loesch said NRA members have "had it" with the newspaper's "fake news" and warned: "Consider this the shot across your proverbial bow. ... In short? We're coming for you." 
 
 Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said she was not in the least reassured by Loesch's appearance at the town hall, especially after she attacked the media the following day. 
 
 "She's younger. She's a woman and a mom. She's television-ready," Watts said. "But her rhetoric is just as radicalized, if not more, than Wayne LaPierre's." 
 
 Loesch grew up in a blue-collar family in a small Missouri town near St. Louis, reared mainly by her mother after her parents' divorce. She told The Times that she recalls her grandfather hunting deer and raccoon, but also a night her grandfather stood on the porch with a shotgun to protect her aunt from an estranged husband. 
 
 "Looking back, I think I always wanted to know that I was safe," she told the newspaper for an article published last month. 
 
 Loesch studied journalism at Webster University, but dropped out when she became pregnant with her first son. She soon began writing a blog about motherhood and started her radio program. She later helped found the St. Louis tea party and had stints as a political analyst at Breitbart News Network and The Blaze. 
 
 Loesch, who has said she keeps a handgun near her bed and has a tattoo on her forearm with a reference to a Bible passage calling for Christians to wear holy armor, has never been afraid of being provocative. 
 
 During a 2012 radio show, Loesch said she didn't have a problem with Marines who urinated on dead Taliban soldiers, declaring: "I'd drop trou and do it too." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writer Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report. 

 CLOSE Companies being urged to cut ties with the gun rights group, advocating a NRA boycott. Veuer's Nick Cardona has that story. Buzz60 
 
 In this March 7, 2012 file photo, Illinois gun owners and supporters file out National Rifle Association applications while participating in an Illinois Gun Owners Lobby Day convention before marching to the Illinois state Capitol in Springfield, Ill. (Photo: Seth Perlman, AP) 
 
 Two major airlines — United Airlines and Delta — said Saturday that they are notifying the National Rifle Association that they will no longer offer discounted rates for NRA members in the latest display of corporate backlash to the pro-gun organization. 
 
 United said it is canceling its program for discounted rates to the NRA's annual meeting while Delta said it was dropping its contract for lower rates through our group travel program. 
 
 United is notifying the NRA that we will no longer offer a discounted rate to their annual meeting and we are asking that the NRA remove our information from their website. — United Airlines (@united) February 24, 2018 
 
 Delta is reaching out to the NRA to let them know we will be ending their contract for discounted rates through our group travel program. We will be requesting that the NRA remove our information from their website. — Delta (@Delta) February 24, 2018 
 
 Both companies said they had asked the NRA to remove these offers from its website. 
 
 "United is notifying the NRA that we will no longer offer a discounted rate to their annual meeting and we are asking that the NRA remove our information from their website," the airlines said on Twitter. 
 
 The moves, in the wake of a mass shooting that killed 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Fla., follow decisions this week by rental car companies Hertz, Enterprise and Avis Budget to end their NRA discounts. 
 
 The NRA defended itself Saturday in a statement while condemning firms that have decided to cut off their relationship with the organization: "The law-abiding members of the NRA had nothing at all to do with the failure of that school's security preparedness, the failure of America's mental health system, the failure of the National Instant Check System or the cruel failures of both federal and local law enforcement." 
 
 The NRA continued by saying that corporations who "decided to punish NRA membership is a shameful display of political and civic cowardice." 
 
 "Let it be absolutely clear. The loss of a discount will 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." 
 
 The pro-gun lobby has come under sharp criticism, particularly from students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school, for opposing efforts to curb the sale of semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 used in the shootings. 
 
 A Change.org petition calling on 25 companies to break ties with the NRA had received almost 7,000 signatures by Saturday morning. 
 
 More: NRA-affiliated businesses shed ties after Parkland, Florida school shooting 
 
 More: NRA-branded Visa card dropped by First National Bank of Omaha 
 
 More: If you own these funds, you are an investor in the major gunmakers 
 
 More: Amazon, Google and Apple under pressure to remove NRA streaming channel 
 
 In other similar moves: 
 
 • MetLife said it would stop providing discounts for auto and home insurance. "We value all our customers but have decided to end our discount program with the NRA," the company told USA TODAY in a statement. 
 
 •Cybersecurity firm Symantec, which offered NRA discounts to its LifeLock identity theft protection service and Norton anti-virus software, told USA TODAY on Friday that it had "stopped its discount program with the National Rifle Association." 
 
 •SimpliSafe, a home security services company, also ended its NRA promotions. "We have discontinued our existing relationship with the NRA," CEO Chad Laurans said in a statement. 
 
 •Wyndham Hotel Group said in a statement that it "ended our relationship with the NRA late last year." 
 
 •North American and Allied Van Lines said in a statement that no longer have an affiliate relationship with the NRA effective immediately, The New York Times reports. 
 
 In addition, Amazon, Apple, Google and Roku are under pressure to end streaming of the NRA's NRAtv. 
 
 Hollywood celebrities including "Law & Order: SVU" executive producer Warren Leight and actors Misha Collins, Evan Handler, Amy Hargreaves, Alyssa Milano, Tara Strong and Ally Walker on Thursday began pushing Amazon to stop streaming NRAtv, the NRA’s public relations channel, through Amazon Fire. 
 
 Amazon Fire is one of the most popular devices that allow people to watch Internet-streaming broadcasts through their television sets. Other video streaming products, including Google’s Chromecast, Apple TV, and Roku, were also under pressure to remove NRAtv from their services. 
 
 NRAtv features 36 channels which covering topics such as politics, hunting and gun collecting. Some of the most popular are talk show-like formats. 
 
 Contributing: Elizabeth Weise, in San Francisco 
 
 Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2ow3Vqr
– As companies continue to sever ties with the National Rifle Association, the gun lobby is hitting back with a statement that says "the law-abiding members of the NRA had nothing at all to do with the failure of that school's security preparedness ... or the cruel failures of both federal and local law enforcement." As USA Today reports, the statement further labels corporate decisions "to punish NRA membership" as "a shameful display of political and civic cowardice." The NRA lists discount programs such as those recently ended by United and Delta airlines as the No. 2 reason to join its ranks, but its partner programs are increasingly under pressure; a Change.org petition has as of Sunday morning almost reached its goal of 25,000 signatures urging 25 companies to cut ties. (The AP has a profile of the NRA's new face, Dana Loesch, here.)