Gun-makers cite banks as new threat to rights
— With Gary GAINESVILLE, GA. Ramey’s fledgling gun-making business taking off in retail stores, he decided to start offering one of his handguns for sale on his website.
That didn’t sit well with the company he used to process payments, and they informed him they were dropping his account. Another credit card processing firm told him the same thing: They wouldn’t do business with him.
The reason? His business of making firearms violates their policies.
In the wake of high-profile mass shootings, corporate America has been taking a stand against the firearms industry amid a lack of action by lawmakers on gun control. Payment processing firms are limiting transactions, Bank of America stopped providing financing to companies that make AR-style guns, and retailers like Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods imposed age restrictions on gun purchases.
The moves are lauded by gun-safety advocates but criticized by the gun industry, which views them as a backhanded way of undermining the Second Amendment. Gun-industry leaders see the backlash as a real threat to their industry and are coming to the conclusion that they need additional protections in Congress to prevent financial retaliation from banks.
“If a few banks say ‘No, we’re not going to give loans to gun dealers or gun manufacturers,’ all of a sudden the industry is threatened and the Second Amendment doesn’t mean much if there are no guns around,” said Michael Hammond, legal counsel for Gun Owners of America. “If you can’t make guns, if you can’t sell guns, the Second Amendment doesn’t mean much.”
The issue has already gotten the attention of the Republican who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho sent letters criticizing Bank of America and Citigroup, which decided to restrict sales of firearms by its business customers, over their new gun rules in the wake of the Florida high school shooting in February.
“We should all be concerned if banks like yours seek to replace legislators and policy makers and attempt to manage social policy by limiting access to credit,” Crapo wrote to Citigroup’s chief executive.
Honor Defense is a small operation with a handful of employees that include Ramey’s son and his wife who work out of a non-descript building in a Georgia office park north of Atlanta. In 2016, its first year, it sold 7,500 firearms. Its products — handcrafted 9mm handguns that come in a variety of colors — can now be found in more than 1,000 stores.
When Ramey noticed that neither Stripe nor Intuit would process payments through his site, he submitted a complaint with Georgia’s attorney general’s office, counting on help from a state law that prohibits discrimination by financial service firms against the gun industry. But the state rejected it, saying that credit card processing is not considered a financial service under state law.
He views the credit card issue as companies “infusing politics into business.”
“We’re just a small company trying to survive here,” Ramey said. “It’s hard enough competing with Smith & Wesson, Ruger and Sig Sauer.”
The financial industry actions came amid a broader pushback by corporate America in the aftermath of the Florida shooting. Delta and United Airlines stopped offering discounted fares to NRA members, as did the Hertz, Alamo and National rental car companies.
First National Bank of Omaha, one of the nation’s largest privately held banks, decided not to renew a co-branded Visa credit card with the NRA.