Wall Street May Be Rethinking Its Relationship With Guns

The proposals were filed by religious groups affiliated with the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, whose members includes 300 institutional investors that manage $400 billion in assets.

BlackRock Moves

Some institutions, such as BlackRock which manages $6.3 trillion, are privately contacting gun companies to make their case.

"Given our inability to sell shares of a company in an index, even if we disagree with management, we focus on engaging with the company and understanding how they are responding to society's expectations of them," said BlackRock spokesman Ed Sweeney. "We  will be engaging with weapons manufacturers and distributors to understand their response to recent events."

He added that BlackRock works with clients who want to exclude weapons makers from their portfolios. BlackRock manages more than $200 billion of assets that are screened for weapons ownership and other value-based issues.

Larry Fink, BlackRock's CEO, wrote to portfolio companies last year, warning that in addition to making money, they must also be aware of the impact on society.

Sweeney declined to comment on whether BlackRock would vote in favor of the shareholder proposals at proxy meetings this year. BlackRock is largest holder of the three companies where the proposals have been filed: Dick's Sporting Goods, with 8.4%; Sturm Ruger, with almost 17%; and American Outdoor Brands, with 11.11%.

At each of the three, whose market capitalization is relatively small, anywhere from a quarter to nearly half of shares are owned by a handful of large institutions that, like BlackRock, generally track market indexes.

Pension funds managed for public school teachers in at least a dozen U.S. states, including New York and California, own stocks issued by the makers of firearms or ammunition.

The financial stakes held by teacher pension funds in gun companies, like those of other equities, each represent only a sliver of the multibillion-dollar state retirement systems' investments, according to a Bloomberg analysis. But the holdings have become a hot-button issue in Florida, where last week's massacre prompted teachers and students to pressure public officials to prevent similar attacks.

The Florida Education Association, which represents educators but doesn't control the pension fund, urged the state body that does to sell its more than a half-million dollars' worth of American Outdoor stock, as well as that of other gun companies.

"I am sure that most of Florida's public school employees are as sickened as I am to learn that the state has invested some of our pension fund holdings in the maker of the AR-15," said Joanne McCall, president of the FEA, an affiliate of the National Education Association. "Surely there are better places for the state to invest its public employee retirement money than in companies that make products that harm our children."

The statement followed a Bloomberg report on Tuesday detailing the Florida pension fund's investments in the firearms industry.

John Kuczwanski, a spokesman for the Florida State Board of Administration, which manages the fund, said that "as fiduciaries, the SBA must act solely in the interest of the participants and beneficiaries." He didn't say whether the fund will follow the divestment demand by the teachers' union.