Chip Bergh, CEO of popular clothing company, Levi Strauss & Co., penned a heartfelt open letter to customers asking them to leave their guns at home.
In the letter posted to LinkedIn on Wednesday, Bergh made a plea for Levi customers not to enter stores carrying weapons following a recent incident, in which a gun inadvertently went off in one of the company's stores, injuring the customer who brought it.
SEE ALSO:This is what it looks like to create a bonfire out of 5,000 gunsBergh offered his opinions on the "complex" and "divisive" U.S. debate over gun safety and rights as a former army officer, a father and business leader of a 163-year-old company.
"I feel a tremendous responsibility to share our position on the issue, now, at a time when clarity is paramount," he wrote, speaking on behalf of the company.
Though Bergh acknowledged the "strongly-held opinions" on both sides of the current weapons debate, he requested people refrain from bringing firearms into any Levi stores, offices and facilities regardless of state laws for the safety of customers and staff.
"With stores in Paris, Nice and Orlando, and the company's European headquarters in Brussels, I’ve thought more about safety in the past year than in the previous three decades of my career because of how 'close to home' so many incidents with guns have come to impacting people working for this company," he wrote.
The CEO also acknowledged the fear that trying to enforce a ban on weapons had the potential to undermine the entire purpose of the ban: safety. "With that in mind," he wrote, "we've made this decision as a business -- a request not a mandate -- and we sincerely hope responsible gun owners will respect our position."
Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action -- part of America's largest gun violence prevention organization, Everytown for Gun Safety -- applauded Bergh's decision.
"Levi’s invented blue jeans – and today they are not only reinventing what it means to wear jeans but also what it means to keep customers and employees safe in their stores, offices or facilities," Watts said in a statement. "This is common sense: No one should have to worry about their safety when shopping for jeans."
Authorized members of law enforcement excluded,Bergh hopes that customers will highly consider and respect his wishes.
"It boils down to this: you shouldn’t have to be concerned about your safety while shopping for clothes or trying on a pair of jeans," he wrote. "In the end, I believe we have an obligation to our employees and customers to ensure a safe environment and keeping firearms out of our stores and offices will get us one step closer to achieving that reality."
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