Will “Debanking” Firearms Makers & Sellers Stop Soon?

Image courtesy NSSF

One of the most insidious ways the prior administration and their anti-gun cronies lashed out at the Second Amendment is “debanking.” That may be about to end.

As of this morning, there are now twin bills that have been introduced in the Senate and the House designed to end this practice. If you’ll recall from previous articles, “debanking” is denying financial services to firearms manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers … not because they’re insolvent, but because their business is out of political favor.

This is something that the anti-gunners never really thought through. Here is a piece of advice from me to anyone who will listen: You must craft each law you make as if, someday, it will be enforced to the letter by your worst enemy. Because someday, it will. If anyone in this reading audience comes from the anti-gun side of the aisle, I ask you to please envision what would happen if Donald Trump’s administration did something like this to your preferred industries.

Luckily for the anti-gunners, Trump seems far more interested in letting Americans make money than he is on paying them back in kind for each and every insult we gun owners have suffered in the last several years. Instead, his administration is simply asking Congress to end the practice, so everyone has equal access to bank services, even the people with whom Trump disagrees. Isn’t that a breath of fresh air?

Here’s what the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) has to say.

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NSSF^®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, praises U.S. Rep. Andy Barr’s (R-Ky.) introduction of the Fair Access to Banking Act, H.R 987, which will end the discriminatory lending practices of major banking institutions that seek to circumvent the legislative process, set social policy from the boardroom and prevent banking regulators from inappropriately pressuring banks to debank politically disfavored industries.

The Fair Access to Banking Act would require banks to provide access to services, capital and credit based on the objective risk assessment of individual customers, rather than subjective broad-based decisions affecting whole categories or classes of customers.

“Congressman Barr’s ‘Fair Access to Banking’ bill is vital to ensure financial service providers aren’t discriminating against lawful industries like the firearm industry to score points with the ‘woke’ cancel culture. This legislation will ensure financial institutions, when deciding whether or not to offer services to fully legal and lawful businesses, make such decisions based upon verifiable financial data and not on the political or social views of a few bank executives,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “The banking industry has benefited from taxpayer bailouts and taxpayer-funded insurances, and it is unacceptable that these same banking institutions believe they can arbitrarily deny services to legal, constitutional businesses such as our industry, which gainfully employs millions of Americans and helps guarantee the right to keep and bear arms. The firearm industry thanks Representative Barr for his leadership to guarantee all legal and regulated American companies have fair and uniform access to financial services.”

The Fair Access to Banking Act would stop corporate banks from picking winners and losers based on executives’ personal politics. It also protects banks from outside pressure by special interest groups seeking to use the banks as a political weapon to advance their agenda.

Corporate banks have privatized “Operation Choke Point,” the illegal discrimination scheme that began under the Obama-Biden administration. The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)-led effort, directed financial institutions to deny entire industries access to services, including the firearm industry. Despite being a Constitutionally-protected industry, the Obama-Biden administration illegally coerced banks to end existing business relationships and deny new ones.

After the illegal practice was ended under the Trump administration, banks and special interest advocates privatized this scheme by adopting policies that specifically denied firearm businesses financial services for the sole reason of being in the business of selling certain types of lawful firearms. They forced these discriminatory practices while exploiting taxpayer-funded resources like FDIC insurance protections. There are now credible claims that under the Biden administration, banking regulators again began pressuring banks to debank certain industries.

Similar legislation, with the same title and also supported by NSSF, was introduced in the U.S. Senate by Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) as S. 401. For more information about how the Fair Access for Banking Act would protect the firearm industry and other industries targeted by illegal discriminatory practices, click here.