After the most recent high-school massacre in Parkland, Florida, left 17 students and teachers dead, the National Rifle Association (NRA), the nonprofit gun-rights advocacy group, was rebuked by a surprising group of liberal activists: American corporations. Pressured by Parkland high-school students and others to boycott the NRA, more than 20 companies have cut ties with the pro-gun group.

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The NRA exodus includes major airlines like United, six rental-car firms including Hertz and Avis Budget Group, and MetLife, the insurance giant. These companies are not rescinding NRA donations, nor are they refusing service to NRA members. Rather, they’re ending discount programs, which companies routinely offer to groups and companies, like the NRA or the AARP. For example, United Airlines offered discounts on flights to the NRA annual meeting, and MetLife auto insurance offered a $50 benefit to members for each year of claim-free driving.

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The latest company to sever ties: United Airlines. The airline company tweeting last Saturday morning to say, “United is notifying the NRA that we will no longer offer a discounted rate to their annual meeting and we are asking that the NRA remove our information from their website.”

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Delta Airlines echoed the same sentiments. “Delta is reaching out to the NRA to let them know we will be ending their contract for discounted rates through our group travel program. We will be requesting that the NRA remove our information from their website.”

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The moves came as petitions circulated online targeting companies offering discounts to NRA members on its website. #BoycottNRA was trending on Twitter. Members of the NRA have access to special offers from partner companies on its website, ranging from life insurance to wine clubs. But the insurance company MetLife Inc. discontinued its discount program with the NRA on Friday. Car rental company Hertz and Symantec Corp., the software company that makes Norton Antivirus technology, did the same.

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“We have notified the NRA that we are ending the NRA’s rental car discount program with Hertz,” the company tweeted Friday. Insurer Chubb Ltd. said it is ending participation in the NRA’s gun-owner insurance program, but it provided notice three months ago. The program that provided coverage for people involved in gun-related incidents or accidents had been under scrutiny by regulators over marketing issues.

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Those defections arrived after car rental company Enterprise Holdings, which also owns Alamo and National, said it was cutting off discounts for NRA members. First National Bank of Omaha, one of the nation’s largest privately held banks, announced that it would not renew a co-branded Visa credit-card with the NRA. Other companies, including Wyndham Hotels and Best Western hotels, have let social media users know they are no longer affiliated with the NRA, though they did not make clear when the partnerships ended.

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The swiftness of the corporate reaction against the NRA has differed from that of past shootings, including the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre that claimed 26 lives and the killing of 58 people in Las Vegas last fall, said Bob Spitzer, a political scientist at SUNY Cortland and a scholar on gun politics. Spitzer said the reaction was likely a reaction to the student mobilization that followed the Florida shooting, but he said it was too soon tell how significantly it will sway the country’s wider gun debate. “If this is as far as it goes, it probably won’t have any measurable effect. If other companies continue to (cut ties) it can start to have an adverse public relations effect,” Spitzer said. “Usually what happens is that the storm passes, and the NRA counts on that.”

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Spitzer noted that it was not the first time big business has been pulled into the gun debate. In 2014, Chipotle asked customers not to bring firearms into its stores after gun-rights advocates brought military-style rifles into one of its Texas restaurants. A year earlier, Starbucks Corp. made a similar statement after the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting. Larry Hutcher, an attorney who specializes in commercial law and litigation, said companies are reacting to a perception that public opinion is shifting on gun regulation. Polls show growing support for gun control measures, including 97 percent backing for universal background checks in a Quinnipiac University survey released Tuesday.

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“It’s based on the fact that these companies and their marketing officers are reading the tea leaves. It makes economic sense to get on the side of the majority of Americans,” said Hutcher, co-managing partner of Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP. NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said this week at the Conservative Political Action Conference that those advocating for stricter gun control are exploiting the Florida shooting.

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President Donald Trump has aligned himself with the NRA, suggesting some teachers could be armed so that they could fire on any attacker. However, Trump has also called for raising the minimum age for purchasing semi-automatic rifles, a move the NRA opposes.

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One important question raised by all this is if there is a deeper force at work. Have America’s corporations shifted to the left, even as national government has moved toward the Republican Party? Or are companies just more sensitive to protests than a divided government is?