Explore The NRA Universe Of Websites

APPEARS IN News

Bailed-out Banks Launch Coordinated Attack on Law-abiding Gun Owners

Friday, April 13, 2018

Bailed-out Banks Launch Coordinated Attack on Law-abiding Gun Owners

There is growing evidence that some of America’s financial elite want to create a world in which America’s public policy decisions emanate from corporate boardrooms in Manhattan rather than from citizens and their elected officials.  This was demonstrated in recent weeks when both Citigroup and Bank of America announced changes to their corporate guidelines aimed at preventing law-abiding Americans from exercising their constitutional rights.

According to Citigroup’s new policy, the nation’s fourth largest bank will withhold business from companies that fail to sufficiently curtail the Second Amendment rights of their customers. Specifically, the policy requires “new retail sector clients or partners” to refrain from selling standard-capacity magazines, to prohibit the sale of firearms to law-abiding adults aged 18 to 20 years-old, and to ignore a vital statutory safety valve provision that permits a Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) to transfer a firearm three days after a background check has been initiated. Citigroup has also stated that it will further scrutinize the firearms manufacturers they do business with.

Bank of America’s policy targets firearms manufacturing. During an April 10 interview with Bloomberg Television, Bank of America Vice Chairman Anne M. Finucane announced that the company no longer intends to lend money to firearms manufacturers that produce certain configurations of commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms. Making clear that Bank of America only opposes civilian access to semi-automatic firearms, Finucane stressed to the anti-gun news outlet that the bank will no longer finance “military-style firearms” for “civilian use.”

In a March 22 blog post announcing Citigroup’s policy change, Citigroup Executive Vice President of Global Public Affairs Ed Skyler lamented that politicians have been too reticent to trample upon the rights of their constituents, and that this respect for the U.S. Constitution prompted Citigroup to act. Before joining Citigroup, Skyler worked for the administration of New York City Mayor and gun control financier Michael Bloomberg.

Skyler also made clear that Citigroup intends to “convene those in the financial services industry and other stakeholders” to push their anti-gun agenda. In a sentence sure to pique the interest of antitrust regulators, Skyler noted that the financial giant “hope[s] to leverage [the] collective action” of financial institutions in order to foist their restrictions on “all who sell firearms.” Using proper gun control advocate vernacular, Skyler referred to Citigroup’s new restrictions as “common-sense.” 

In relation to Citigroup’s restriction on standard-capacity magazines and Bank of America’s attack on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms, both private and publicly funded studies have determined that such measures would be ineffective. Most recently, a report from the Rand Corporation, titled “The Science of Gun Policy,” examined the available research on a host of gun control proposals. Rand found that the evidence of the effects of bans on the sale of commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms and standard-capacity magazines was “inconclusive.” A 2013 Department of Justice National Institute of Justice survey of the available research determined that in order to have any potential impact, a ban on standard capacity magazines would need to be coupled with an “extensive” confiscation effort.

With its age restriction policy, Citigroup may also be encouraging some of its retail business partners to violate state and local discrimination laws. As UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh pointed out on his influential blog, the Volokh Conspiracy, Citigroup “must exempt retailers' actions in those no-age-discrimination states.” As Volokh explained “When a law bans some action, it also usually (explicitly or implicitly) bans others from trying to cause that action.”

As an example, Volokh pointed to Michigan’s anti-discrimination statute, writing,

the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (Mich. Comp. Laws. §§ 37.2301-.2304) bans age discrimination in retail sales, and § 37.2701 likewise provides that no person shall "[a]id, abet, incite, compel, or coerce a person to engage in a violation of this act" or "[w]illfully obstruct or prevent a person from complying with this act" or "interfere with a person in the exercise or enjoyment of ... any right granted or protected by this act." If a credit card company demands that stores illegally discriminate, then it's inciting, compelling, and coercing violations within the meaning of the law, obstructing the stores' complying with the law, and interfering with 18-to-20-year-olds' enjoyment of rights granted by the law.

Citigroup’s other gun control measure requires that retailers “don’t sell firearms to someone who hasn’t passed a background check.” Of course, firearms retailers are already required by federal law to conduct a background check on all prospective purchasers. What Citigroup is attacking here is an important safety-valve that ensures that Americans are not denied their Second Amendment rights as a result of government malice or incompetence.

The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is supposed to be instant. However, some checks require further research by a NICS Examiner to resolve. Federal law provides that in these cases a FFL may proceed with a firearms transfer after three business days if “the system has not notified the [FFL] that the receipt of a firearm by [the buyer or transferee] would [violate federal law.]” Even if the firearm is transferred, FBI continues their attempt to resolve the background check for 90 days. If a purchaser is determined to be prohibited after receiving a firearm, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is notified and there is an effort to retrieve the gun.

Significant delays can and do happen through no fault of the prospective purchaser. The FBI has noted that delays can occur due to a purchaser sharing similar personal characteristics (such as age, date of birth, height, or weight) to a prohibited individual, or because government records are incomplete. According to the 2016 NICS Operations Report, 11 percent of NICS background checks were delayed for additional review. Only 1.2 percent of prospective firearms purchasers were then denied.

By forcing the retailers it deals with to ignore the three day safety-valve provision, Citigroup is endorsing an indefinite firearms waiting period and will be complicit in restricting the rights of innocent Americans. An affront to due process, their policy circumvents the government’s burden of conclusively proving that a person has a prohibiting record before the individual is denied their constitutional rights.

Thankfully, some lawmakers have refused to take this attack on Second Amendment rights lying down. On March 29, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who sit on the Senate Banking Committee, issued a stern warning to Citigroup CEO Michael L. Corbat. Sen. Kennedy urged Citigroup to refrain from “penalizing Americans who choose to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights,” and instead to focus on the company’s many shortcomings. Sen. Kennedy also reminded Corbat that “The very fact that Citi remains operational is due entirely to the generosity of the American taxpayers.”

According to an article from Politico, Sen. Kennedy has also urged the General Services Administration to cease its relationship with the bank. Moreover, the office of Senate Banking Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) is reported to have taken a significant interest in Citigroup’s anti-gun policy. 

Citigroup, Bank of America, and other major corporations would do well to recognize that the American voter, through their elected representatives, has repeatedly rejected restrictions on their Second Amendment rights. Moreover, in the case of these banks, shareholders should question the wisdom of corporate leadership that would willfully alienate pro-gun voters and lawmakers.

 

TRENDING NOW
Last Chance for Gun Owners to Ask U.S. House to Amend the Reconciliation Bill

News  

Monday, May 19, 2025

Last Chance for Gun Owners to Ask U.S. House to Amend the Reconciliation Bill

The U.S. House of Representatives has another chance to amend the current Reconciliation Bill making its way through Congress. The Reconciliation Bill would currently rescind the unconstitutional tax on suppressors, but it doesn’t remove them ...

Clueless Anti-gun Democrats Dig Themselves an Ever Deeper Hole

Monday, May 19, 2025

Clueless Anti-gun Democrats Dig Themselves an Ever Deeper Hole

Anyone reading the firearm-related news these days is reminded that anti-gun Democrats appear oblivious to the blunt message sent by millions of American voters last fall. Despite Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris blowing through a mountain ...

Trump DOJ Settles Lawsuits Involving Forced Reset Triggers

News  

Monday, May 19, 2025

Trump DOJ Settles Lawsuits Involving Forced Reset Triggers

On Friday, May 16, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the settlement of several lawsuits arising from the Biden-Harris regime’s attempt to reclassify forced reset triggers (FRTs) as “machineguns.” DOJ’s announcement cited President Trump’s Executive Order Protecting ...

Rocky Times for Gun Owners in the Rocky Mountain State

News  

Tuesday, May 13, 2025

Rocky Times for Gun Owners in the Rocky Mountain State

As the Colorado legislative session closes, its 2025 edition will long be remembered and lamented as a historic assault on the Second Amendment.

House Committee on Ways and Means Advances Legislation Involving Suppressors

News  

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

House Committee on Ways and Means Advances Legislation Involving Suppressors

Early this morning, The House Committee on Ways & Means, led by Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO-08) finished a markup of their section of the Reconciliation Bill. Included in this legislation was a provision which would ...

Arizona: Governor Hobbs Vetoes Three Pro-Gun Bills Passed by Legislature

Friday, May 16, 2025

Arizona: Governor Hobbs Vetoes Three Pro-Gun Bills Passed by Legislature

Despite strong support from the Arizona Legislature, Governor Katie Hobbs has vetoed Senate Bills 1014, 1020, and 1143, each of which sought to protect and enhance the rights of law-abiding gun owners in the Grand Canyon ...

Canada’s Gun Confiscation: Still Grasping for Solutions?

News  

Tuesday, May 13, 2025

Canada’s Gun Confiscation: Still Grasping for Solutions?

Last year, we wrote about how several previous enforcement schemes for Canada’s Liberal government’s 2020 gun ban and confiscation appeared to have fizzled out. 

Another Court Determines Magazines Aren’t “Arms” in Upholding Arbitrary Limits

News  

Monday, May 19, 2025

Another Court Determines Magazines Aren’t “Arms” in Upholding Arbitrary Limits

Last week, the Washington State Supreme Court upheld the state’s ban on magazines that hold over ten rounds, overturning a lower court order that had deemed it unconstitutional. The 7-2 decision in State v. Gator’s Custom ...

Anti-gun Lawmakers Attempt to Ban Essential Second Amendment Arms

News  

Monday, May 5, 2025

Anti-gun Lawmakers Attempt to Ban Essential Second Amendment Arms

On April 30, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) introduced the so-called “Assault Weapons Ban of 2025.” Picking up where his predecessor Dianne Feinstein left off, Schiff’s legislation would ban commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms, such as the AR-15.

Trump Administration Revives Federal Firearm Rights Restoration Provision

News  

Friday, March 21, 2025

Trump Administration Revives Federal Firearm Rights Restoration Provision

On March 20, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) published an interim final rule entitled, Withdrawing the Attorney General’s Delegation of Authority. That bland title belies the historic nature of the measure, which is aimed at reviving ...

MORE TRENDING +
LESS TRENDING -

More Like This From Around The NRA

NRA ILA

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the "lobbying" arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.