Both American Outdoor and Sturm Ruger face shareholder resolutions filed by religious investors calling for them to report on their gun safety efforts, aimed for their shareholder meetings later this year.
Patrick McGurn, special counsel for proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services, said directors on the boards of both should expect tough questions from shareholders.
"Guns join opioids, cyber hacks, sexual harassment, human rights and climate change as top-of-mind risks that shareholders will want to discuss with boards during engagements and at annual meetings," McGurn said via e-mail.
Not all top fund firms are taking a public stance on the weapons debate.
Vanguard Group Inc said in a statement e-mailed by a spokesman on Friday that while it discusses with companies whose shares it owns "the impact of their business on society," the Pennsylvania fund manager also "believes we can be more effective in advocating for change by not publicly discussing the nature of engagements with specific companies by name."
A spokesman for Fidelity Investments said via e-mail on Sunday that the firm generally does not comment on individual companies or how it plans to vote on proxy resolutions.
"We do our best to see that our investment decisions are in line with our fiduciary obligation to ensure that every Fidelity fund is managed based on the investment objective described in its prospectus," she said.
This article was provided by Reuters.