Blake Mycoskie, the founder of footwear company TOMS Shoes, is a strong advocate of gun control. Following the November 2018 mass shooting at a bar in Thousand Oaks, CA, Mycoskie became an activist. In February 2019, he was delighted that the House had passed several gun-control bills and vowed to work hard to see that the “bills became law.” In particular, he hoped to see the Universal Background Check bill passed by the Senate and “spent millions of dollars of company funds” to see it through.

At the time, Footwear Daily reported that Mycoskie “pledged $5 million toward organizations committed to gun safety and joined advocates in a countrywide tour that reached its final stop in Washington, D.C.”

In a statement, Mycoskie said:

We started the End Gun Violence Together initiative to create a safer country for us all and to urge our representatives to finally take action on the gun violence epidemic in this country. We join our gun violence prevention partner organizations and over 90 percent of Americans who support this legislation in thanking Congress for reading our postcards, hearing our collective call for change and taking this historic step.

Our work is not done. This legislation is the first step in ending senseless gun violence in our communities. We will continue what we started in November and urge our elected officials in the Senate to pass universal background check legislation into law.

Mycoskie may have directed too much time and money to his activist pursuits and not enough on his business. The company’s financial position has weakened over the last ten months to the point where they were unable to pay off a large loan due this year and creditors have recently taken control. Five years ago, he held a 50% ownership stake in a company that was valued at $600 million. Today, he no longer holds any ownership in the company.

Sadly, it’s another case of “Get Woke, Go Broke.”

Instead of focusing on his business, Mycoskie concentrated on removing our Second Amendment rights. And he did so with a megaphone.

He should really have understood that not all of his customers agree with his politics. I’ve purchased a couple of pairs of espadrilles from TOMS in the past, but once news of Mycoskie’s leap into left-wing activism broke, I and countless others moved on. An espadrille is an espadrille, after all.

Bearing Arms’ Cam Edwards writes that for $28, you can still buy a t-shirt that says “End Gun Violence Together.”