The National Rifle Association is probably used to being in the hot seat. After all, gun rights are far more controversial than they should be, and the NRA is at the forefront of the American consciousness when it comes to that topic. If you ask someone to name a pro-gun organization, 99 times out of 100, the person will name the NRA.

However, in times past, no matter how hot things got, some companies figured it was good business to stand by the NRA. It’s too bad that those days now seem to be over.

Several companies are ending their ties to the National Rifle Association in the wake of last week’s massacre at a Florida high school that left 17 dead. Four major companies, Enterprise Holdings, First National Bank of Omaha, Symantec, and MetLife are among the first to call it quits after a #BoycottNRA hashtag started to pick up steam online late Thursday.

The NRA was initially mum on the event but later went on offense during an annual gathering of conservatives at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington Thursday, igniting the boycott.

The gun rights group’s chief executive Wayne LaPierre openly criticized gun-control advocates and the media for its coverage of the shooting.

“They don’t care about our schoolchildren,” LaPierre said Thursday. “They want to make all of us less free,” adding that Democrats are pushing a “socialist” agenda to deprive gun owners of their weapons.

The companies in question:

• Delta
• United
• First National Bank of Omaha
• Enterprise Holdings
• Symantec Corporation
• Met Life

As I said last week, companies have a right to do business with whomever they want, so long as they don’t violate any contracts in the process. That’s the kind of thing that happens in a free society.

Businesses that do so should remember, however, that such a thing is a sword that cuts both ways. There are tens of millions of gun owners in this country. Should we decide to no longer use a company’s services because they have taken a decidedly anti-Second Amendment stance, that could cause some serious hurt.

What’s hilarious is how many of these people who are blasting the NRA don’t yet recognize that the organization represents the more moderate gun rights crowd. Look at how readily they threw bump stocks under the bus following Las Vegas, for example. They’re the gun rights organization that’s more than willing to try and play ball with the gun grabbers.

There are a lot of others who are far more radical in our belief that the Second Amendment should not be infringed. Those are people who may well be looking to sever some ties of their own, not because of any innate loyalty to the NRA, but because they can see when a company is embracing anti-gun hatred.

Over the next week or two, don’t be surprised if this list of companies grows as the anti-gun left continues to try and ramp up the pressure against gun rights organizations and lawmakers to try and deal a blow against the Second Amendment and its supporters.

Let’s just make damn sure we still have our rights when this is all done; then we can look at the rest.