Jimmy John’s Faces Boycott over Founder’s Elephant Hunt Photo

Jimmy John’s sandwich chain is facing a boycott from animal rights activists over hunt photos that show company founder Jimmy John Liautaud giving a thumbs up by a dead elephant.

Mark Hamill, star of the Star Wars franchise, retweeted the photo on Twitter:

AOL reports that Liautaud has long been a fan of big game hunting and that he drew fire from animal rights activists in 2011 for posts with other animals that had been hunted. AOL listed a number of different animals that Liautaud has allegedly hunted then noted that “there’s no evidence that any of these hunts were illegal,”

USA Today reports that the hashtag, #BoycottJimmyJohns trended on Twitter on Friday. The paper reports that the boycott movement got a boost when Brother Nature — a Twitter account with 2.3 million followers — blasted out the photo of Liautaud with the elephant.

The photo was retweeted “nearly 65,000 times” within the first 11 hours of being posted.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.