Bank of America Caves

The next domino has fallen:

On Tuesday, Finucane said, “We have had intense conversations over the last few months. And it’s our intention not to finance these military-style firearms for civilian use.” She said the reaction has been mixed.

“These are clients we have enjoyed a relationship with,” she said. “There are those I think will reduce their portfolios and we’ll work with them and others that will choose to do something else.”

The amount of damage Bank of America and Citi can do pales in the amount of damage already done to the US Firearms business by Cerberus Capital via Remington Outdoors. The gun business is better off as a highly distributed cottage industry, and I suspect with changes in technology, that’s where it’ll be headed. Such an industry is going to be less vulnerable to pressure from big banks and the financial industry.

Personally, I think the banks need to be broken up. Both Citi and Bank of Americans eagerly lapped up trillions of our tax dollars. Never again. Break them up.

39 thoughts on “Bank of America Caves”

  1. Breaking up the big banks has all sorts of positive impacts completely unrelated to guns. Of course, the gun angle will make all of us greatly amused.

  2. I have no doubt that pressure is being exerted by certain Billionaires rather than the Astroturf.
    Who do we know is an expert on crashing banks and currency for profit?

    1. Actually the truth is more like: New York “Republicans” who populate management and boardrooms are not inclined to be pro-2A. They watch Fox Business News, which frankly is pretty anti gun. I am frankly really sick of the FBN “experts” – mostly former NYPD- telling me civilians do not need military weapons like the AR15. New York “Republicans” live in a very comfy Manhattan bubble where everyone has a door man and guards. On a bad day they have to commute to Princeton, NJ, in a limo.

      1. Which is why we need to start influencing them, break the bubble. We need to be in their world to bring them into ours. Why let only anti gun people have a say with them?

    2. It wouldn’t be Old George would it? Nah, he has one foot in the grave and the other one on ice.

  3. One thing to note is that the market has come to where if a gun company /isn’t/ making High Capacity handguns or EBRs. Then they’re either doing shotguns or some specialized niche and not generic “guns”.

    These news reports admit it tacitly when they admit that this is less about getting the companies to change their product lines and more to drop them entirely.

    But gun control has gotten more explicit in that it’s putative on cultural grounds.

  4. Not surprised. These banks are big and run by a bunch of liberals. BoA is terrible anyway.

    There are plenty of small banks in red states that will happily do business with gun makers.

    I hope these banks are broken up too. And any special treatment they get should be ended where possible.

    Its also funny if they think that gun makers will change their business model to cater to these big banks and shareholder wishes. I’d love to see BlackRock try something like this then lose a ton of money when the company crashes.

  5. Progressives already hate banks, no amount of moral virtue on guns will cure that. So banks are going to go and piss of the other side of the isle. We shall see how that strategy works out.

  6. Things like this are why I have always avoided banks, I keep my business with a local credit union, as far as I am concerned banks, like social media are institutions best avoided when ever possible.

  7. This move by Bank of America is bad business and bad politics. It is corrosive to the profits of the bank and corrosive to a national politics of good will. It is an escalation of the Culture War.

    This development reinforces my political theory about the gun-control movement, that the movement was never really about good public policy, and was really about class conflict. Just an effort by the Rich and the Powerful to disarm the Poor and the Powerless.

    Yes. Bust the Banks.

  8. This kind of big-business meddling in politics is what caused the Public to rise up against the Trusts and Railroads more than 100 years ago.

    Do those Wall Street idiots realize the forces they are so blindly unleashing?

    1. http://newsroom.bankofamerica.com/anne-finucane

      “Anne M. Finucane is vice chairman at Bank of America and a member of the company’s executive management team. She is responsible for the strategic positioning of Bank of America and leads the company’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) efforts.”

      Golly, the bank has a freaking department of Social Justice Warriors.

      Seeing as this effing Bank thinks they should be ‘governing’ us, I think I’ll contact them to try and find out just what they mean by “military style firearms”. This should be interesting…

      1. She has basically been their image consultant for years and not a real banker. She is not in the top 5 in compensation at B of A. She doesn’t even live in Charlotte despite being part of the executive team. She lives in Massachusetts. If you check the Fed Elections Comm website, you will see all her contributions – and they are substantial – go to Democrats.

  9. Not only the banks but also Google and Facebook. Will it happen? No. Too much consolidated power to break it up.

    I have Chase. I’ve been looking around at local banks for when (not if) they will cave so I can switch.

    1. PSECU offers a “2% cash back on everything” Founders Card VISA. It’s 1.5% without direct deposit, but if you are in PA it may be worth your while to switch your main card.

    2. I’ve been noticing that a lot of the local credit unions have been picking up the slack, and turning into banks in all but name.
      I’d call them up, and see if the offer regular accounts and credit cards, you might be surprised.

    3. I closed my Citibank MasterCard which I have had since 1977. (The very nice customer service rep was very impressed by how long I have been a customer. She agreed that the reason for my upset would be sent up the chain of command; I was not the first.) Just opened a MasterCard with my credit union.

  10. Right now Wells Fargo’s CEO has pushed back against the strongarm tactics of the teachers’ union’s whining against gun owners. I’ve thanked them by calling the customer service number. I’ve also cancelled all Citi accounts. I’ll hold my money ’til the cards fall, then invest in those who share my love of freedom. We all ought to think about doing the same thing.

  11. You have brought up an idea that I have been pushing as well and that is that high levels of distribution are advisable and desirable. The MSR portion of the industry has done a remarkable job of doing just that. I think we need to find ways to ensure that the handgun industry can be distributed better.

    This article: https://www.brookings.edu/research/a-gun-control-solution-manufacturers-can-get-behind/
    Is what got me thinking in that direction. The authors idea is of course preposterous on many levels, but it does show the methods in which the new anti gunners are looking.

    Overall I’m concerned about our industries support structures as well. The ability to host and distribute our content and to finance new ideas are all at stake currently. We can not give up our place in mainstream society, but we should have alternatives ready. In the long run small and distributed companies work in our favor.

    Frankly, I believe that distributing (decentralizing)most anything is beneficial, This pretty much proves it in the case of banking. Break ’em up.

    1. Sure. The fact that the arms industry works the way it does is because civilian semi-auto rifle ownership is tied to military rifle ownership in the United States. Decoupling or driving a wedge between those two things is the aspect that Bank of America chose to take in their decision. That is the way the anti-gunners have chosen to attack the AWB issue since legislative bans aren’t happening and have shown to be useless in achieving the goal of “reducing gun violence.”

      Note that the wording of the press release is that they will not loan money to a company that produces and markets rifles to civilians. That’s the “wedge” they hope to drive through the industry. It will never happen, of course, just as the anti-gun dream of universal disarmament will not happen. They would sooner see an arms vendor go out of business.

      But let’s be prepared for alternative financial arrangements, sure, because this stuff will also ultimately threaten other aspects of society including military readiness. When there are fewer gun vendors to bid on those government RFPs, how does that impact the federal budget?

      1. Colt tried playing that political game back in the 90’s. They split off the rifle division from handguns, and tried to restrict sales to police and govt. Didn’t work too well for them. They folded them back together within the past couple years. Does Colt look like a healthy business? What they didn’t realize is that the .gov no longer cared if they bought US supplied weapons, and they would have to compete directly with EU supported companies.

    2. That was an eye popping article. The assumptions and knowledge-gaps of the authors, and who they are and the institutions they represent were all very telling.

      It is an interesting peek into the mindset of the kind of people who presume themselves to be a new ruling class, and the immoral machinations and scheming they devote themselves to. The smug was strong in them.

  12. Thats illegal discrimination in Georgia. Georgia passed a law after opertation choke point (10-1-439.1 to 439.4) which says banks cant discriminate against the firearm trade.

    1. I wonder who will enforce it, just like who I wonder is enforcing the state preemption law in Illinois?

      1. This is Georgia. Where, as soon as Delta came out against the 2nd amendment, the legislature pulled their $40 million tax break. If any state is going to take this seriously, it’s us.

  13. If banks are deciding to interfere with legal interstate commerce, they need to be much more heavily regulated (and prosecuted).

  14. My wife closed her business account with BOA last week and opened an account with Wells Fargo…

      1. She did and the woman who did her closure paperwork and did the inter-bank transfer for the money in the account, said she would let the bank manager know.

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