NRA Takes Aim At Austin-Based Yeti Again For Cutting Ties

SOUTH AUSTIN, TX — The National Rifle Association has taken aim at Austin-based Yeti again after the locally based maker of high-quality ice chests severed ties with the gun rights advocacy group last month. This time, they urge their members not to destroy their expensive coolers in protest as some have done, but simply affix one of their stickers to hide the corporate name.

To that end, the NRA has distributed more than 100,000 of their popular "I Stand With The NRA Foundation" stickers to membership rank and file during its recent convention staged in Dallas, according to their website. The stickers should be affixed to all Yeti products — coolers, thermal mugs, water bottles, pouches, etc. — with the corporate logo covered up in protest, NRA officials advised their followers, which are legion.

Like out of sight out of mind, but with the advantage of keeping the high-quality Yeti products rather than destroying them.

The NRA took umbrage when Yeti — headquartered at 220 S. Congress Ave. in South Austin — severed its ties with its foundation last month, the latest in a growing list of companies distancing themselves itself from the gun rights group over its unbending commitment to unfettered access to guns — even after 17 people lost their lives at a Florida high school in a Feb. 14 massacre by a lone gunman. In solidarity with their ideological fountainhead, numerous NRA members grabbed their firearms to blow their pricey Yeti products to smithereens in response, invariably filming their high-powered acts of protest for posterity.

NRA is now calling for a cease-fire. Sort of.

“Don’t blow up your Yeti cooler,” NRA officials wrote members in a recent message. “Don’t shoot your Yeti cooler full of holes. Don’t chain your Yeti cooler to the back of your pick-up truck and drag it down the highway. Don’t glue a toilet seat to Yeti cooler. Don’t hang your Yeti cooler in a tree and beat it with a baseball bat.“Put a big ‘I stand with the NRA Foundation’ sticker on your Yeti cooler and keep using it. They cost too much money to destroy to make a statement. Let a sticker make your statement.”

The call to cover up the logo came in the form of a recent tweet with an offer to send the decals. The tweet doubles as a video primer illustrating just how to place an NRA decal over the Yeti logo on products for the sticker-challenged:

See related story: Austin-Based Yeti Facing Backlash After Cutting NRA Ties

NRA officials claimed Yeti had "suddenly, without prior notice," severed its NRA tied, something the local company disputes. Yes, they cut their ties but telegraphed they were planning on doing so to the NRA long before the split, company officials said. What's more, Yeti reiterated its commitment to the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution protecting gun ownership even while it called for some restrictions to mitigate gun violence, company officials previously explained.

But for some NRA members, that sticker memo has come too late. Many already have destroyed their Yeti ice chests in protest — an expensive proposition given the price of some of the high-end models running into the hundreds of dollars.

For some NRA members, it's way too late for stickers:

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