GAINESVILLE, Ga. — With Gary 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 that 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.
Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods both decided they would no longer sell “assault weapons” or firearms to people under age 21. REI, an outdoor-gear shop that doesn’t sell firearms, joined in and decided it would stop selling such items as ski goggles, water bottles and bike helmets made by companies whose parent firm, Vista Outdoor, manufactures ammunition and AR-style long guns.
There’s been election-year response from some lawmakers, notably in Georgia where Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, who is running for governor, led a move in the Legislature to kill a tax break on jet fuel to punish Atlanta-based Delta over its NRA actions. The move cost the airline an estimated $40 million.
Gun-control advocates have applauded the efforts, saying it demonstrates responsible leadership at a time of paralysis in government. Experts say it’s a sign that the business world views wading into the gun debate as not at all risky – and, in fact, potentially beneficial to their brand.
“Companies by and large avoid these issues like the plague and they only get involved – whether they’re credit card companies or airlines – when they feel like doing nothing is as bad as doing something and they feel completely stuck,” said Timothy D. Lytton, professor at Georgia State University’s College of Law and author of “Suing the Gun Industry: A Battle at the Crossroads of Gun Control and Mass Torts.”
The gun industry acknowledges that there’s nothing requiring companies from doing business with gun manufacturers or dealers. Monthly reports from the federal government show background checks to purchase a firearm are up over last year so far, so the early actions apparently have not put a dent in sales.
Still, the industry believes it needs stronger laws against financial retaliation in the future.
“We may have to seek legislation to make sure it can’t be done and that you can’t discriminate against individuals from lawful exercise of a constitutional right,” said Larry Keane, senior vice president and legal counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents gunmakers. “Imagine if banks were to say you can’t purchase books or certain books aren’t acceptable. That would be problematic and I don’t think anyone would stand for that kind of activity by the banking industry.”
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“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power” – Benito Mussolini
“The definition of fascism is ‘The marriage of corporation and state’ ” – Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini
The obvious marriage of leftists in U.S. corporate media, corporate social media, and in the big banking industries, with leftists working to suppress and deny our rights throughout all levels of our formerly representative government, is quite literally, fascism. By definition.
The more you know…
IMO if a store is sued into bankruptcy, for refusing to cater to a gay wedding, then ANY BANK THAT refuses to do business, with a gun store/maker, SHOULD EQUALLY GET SUED Into oblivion!!!!
The difference being that gay weddings are not protected in the Constitution, despite what the Libs say. You can choose to believe gay marriage is good or evil.
The right to bear arms is definitely protected by the Constitution, you know the plain text part that the Libs hate, meaning all of the Constitution. The only parts they like are the imagined parts they pretend are in there, given false legitimacy by Lib SCOTUS justices.
Try finding a credit card company that has a moral objection to abortion and refuses payment.
Every one of these financial firms that try to shut down legit gun businesses by fiat should be themselves dismantled.
Also we need to start up a special independent monetary system like Bitcoin that will ensure people can buy guns and ammo. Maybe call it Bulletcoin.
There is always the cash and barter option………until they utilize the mark. That is the end game of progressives. Complete and total control. They take after their father.
That is a good point Dr G. WHY IS IT we have not seen a single one, refuse to take the payments from planned parentlesshood on moral grounds?
IMO its cause they are liberal RAN.
What the gun supporting organizations need to do is some horizontal expansion into these services – it is obviously profitable. Start your own financial organization that offers competitive Credit Cards and processing fees so that the current politically motivated organizations become irrelevant to us.
The financial industry is very highly regulated…which I think was what the globalist controllers wanted. They wanted to make it extremely difficult for new money to compete with them so they could run our lives in the way they see fit. Breaking the backs of the big banks is of primary importance for Americans to receive any of their freedoms back, but is also extremely difficult.
Then go the route the weed stores are having to.. CASH only.
Really? Credit card processing is not considered a financial service? Then what the hell is it?
Then we need to start suing them, just like the LGBTQ mafia did to dozens of bakers, florists and photographers…
SUE THEM FOR WILLFUL DISCRIMINATION.
Oh, how I love the liberals destroying our Constitution. Send the liberal trash to Cuba and North Korea!
Preferably, from 10,000 feet in the air, without a parachute.
I would like to see a comprehensive list of banks and corporations that violate my policy of doing business with only financial or other corporations that will do business with businesses involved in the production or sale of firearms. If they find this comment hard to follow, they’ll understand better when there’s a noticeable drop in their cash flow.
So would i. That way WE would know who to cease doing business with.
I find this very troubling because, while I support the notion that a business should not have to serve customers it does not agree with want to for whatever reason(moral, etc.), and it is the right of the people to boycott said business to protest that policy, the government should not be getting involved. But it appears that the government gets involved when it wants to (in the case of the cake decorator and the gay couple) and stays on the sidelines when it wants to (the case of credit being denied to gun purchasers); so it appears we have protected classes and unprotected classes. If you are a member of a protected class (we know who they are), then businesses MUST by law serve them, but if you are a member of the other classes (we also know who they/we are), you receive no such governmental protections. so it falls to us to protect ourselves. We need to cancel credit cards offered by banks that take part in such discriminatory practices. If enough people stop using those cards, the companies will be forced to reevaluate its policies or lose revenue. I’m sure such organizations as the NRA will be publishing a list of “gun friendly” credit providers in the not-to-distant future. In the meantime, there’s always cash.
IMO there is a BIG difference between a cake bakery, a florist etc, and a BANK.. The former two are not regulated, where as banks and credit card companies ARE.. THUS TO ME< they should not be allowed what so ever, to say "Sorry but we are refusing service based on moral grounds"..
Pathetic. It’s sad to see Banking institutions giving in to stupidity and fascist ideas.
Perhaps all the gun manufacturers and companies that sell guns could form a collective to provide for their own financial needs. It would seem that as many as they are, they could pay dues to the collective for the collective good. With success, they could issue their own credit cards…
I’d be down with that.