Nineteen Republican Senators signed a letter to Treasury Sec. Steve Mnuchin, alerting him that financial institutions might use recovery funds to target gun companies.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) reports that U.S. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) spearheaded the effort to warn Mnuchin not simply that the efforts against gun companies could occur, but are fully expected.
The letter said, “A small but vocal minority has weaponized federally-backed banks against politically-disfavored businesses that operate in good faith and compliance with the law, by denying them financial services based on political reasons that have nothing to do with creditworthiness.”
The Senators listed a number of bans, Citibank and Bank of America JP Morgan Chase among them, as examples of financial institutions that have previously put special rules or corporate gun controls in place for businesses in the firearms industry.
NSSF explained:
These banks has taken discriminatory stances against the firearms industry, denying financial services unless manufacturers and retailers adopt their views on gun control. It isn’t just the firearm industry that’s been victimized by the corporate virtue signalers. These banking institutions, along with credit card processors and financial service providers, also targeted the oil and gas industry, coal, private corrections and other politically disfavored industries.
On March 23, 2018, Breitbart News reported that Citibank had unveiled a new “Commercial Firearms Policy,” aimed at denying business to members of the firearms industry who refused to enact corporate gun controls urged by Citibank.
On April 13, 2018, Reuters reported that Bank of America was reworking their policy so as to end business with customers “who make military-style firearms for civilians.” Bank of America does not differentiate between the fact that military rifles are fully automatic, whereas civilian firearms are only semiautomatic.
The Citibank and Bank of America examples are just the tip of the iceberg, and do not even begin to reveal the larger financial shenanigans against gun makers via Operation Choke Point.
On January 8, 2014, Breitbart News reported that President Obama’s Operation Choke Point pressured credit processors and certain lenders against doing business with gun manufacturers.
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 at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.