Opinion

USA -(AmmoLand.com)- Second Amendment supporters already see court rulings strike down laws that violate the Second Amendment across the country – it’s a good start. But they also swing good reasons to make addressing financial deplatforming a priority.
With JP Morgan Chase deciding to close Kanye West’s business accounts and Bank of America going after conservative social media commentator Catturd, the alarm is buzzing again – and Second Amendment supporters cannot afford to keep hitting the snooze button with regards to financial deplatforming.
The stakes aren’t just whether or not buying guns becomes a case of using cash. It also has the potential to cripple our ability to exercise the First Amendment to protect the Second Amendment. This is right out of a playbook long run by anti-Second Amendment extremists.
They tried and failed with McCain-Feingold, especially in the wake of Citizens United. They’ve been unable to pass other legislation that would expose donors. Letitia James and Andrew Cuomo’s jihad against the NRA ran into a First Amendment brick wall regarding their desire to dissolve the group.
However, the CEOs and top executives of big financial services corporations – be it banks, credit cards, or insurance companies – can act independently (or after prodding from anti-Second Amendment extremists in office), and there are not many Second Amendment supporters can do. Sure, some smaller banks might be safe havens for the short-to-medium term, but the only long-term security is the passage of strong legislation to address financial deplatforming in as many Second Amendment-friendly states as possible.
Think it won’t happen? There are two likely scenarios for a massive surge of financial deplatforming of the Second Amendment community – the first would be a SCOTUS ruling explicitly striking down bans on modern multi-purpose semi-automatic long guns. In that case, anti-Second Amendment extremists would likely push for corporate gun control due to a lack of other options.
The second scenario would be repeated school shootings like those in Uvalde or Sandy Hook. This time, we could see financial services companies cite “reputational risk,” with or without pressure from government officials (again, see Andrew Cuomo and Letitia James) or lawmakers.
The financial deplatforming can be halted firmly with strong legislation in the form of state-level versions of the Freedom Financing Act as a bare minimum. The fact of the matter is that Second Amendment supporters have to defeat the ability of banks to financially deplatform them in order to defeat anti-Second Amendment extremists via the ballot box at the federal, state, and local levels.
About Harold Hutchison
Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.
The antis will stop at nothing to get rid of the 2A for the masses, this is just another avenue to do it. I ask this – will the government protect these people when “the thing” goes down and they are directly targeted? The answer is going to be no and they will just become casualties of their own, sick game.
Harold. Editing is our friend. This is barely readable!
It sounds like their is room for a new credit card company for safety and self-defense businesses now! Of course, another aporoach is for the regulatory agency to require no discrimination!
Let’s use our voting piwer to toss out the woke and depraved starting in NOV!
Don’t do business with these banks. Use your local credit union.
Since these banks are federally insured and have previously been bailed out using taxpayer money it seems that a case could be made that they are so closely connected with the Federal government that they potentially be sued as being a government actor.
Funny hos so called conservatives scream about hte free market deciding and then want special treatment when it does and they do not like the result. Seems one of those whining would start a card processing company that does does not do this!