Has Joe Biden fired the first subtle shot in his war on guns by “interfering in the affairs” of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and pausing publication of a new rule designed to protect small businesses “fair access” to bank surfaces?
That’s what The Outdoor Wire is reporting. After the OCC “paused publication” if the new rule, an official with the National Shooting Sports Foundation ripped the move.
“The first salvo in the gun control fight has begun and the Biden Administration has fired the first shot by improperly interfering in the affairs of the OCC which is an independent agency,” National Shooting Sport Foundation’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel Larry Keane.
The OCC put things on hold less than two weeks after NSSF hailed finalizing the rule ending discrimination “by financial service providers against the firearm industry and others.”
At the time, Keane noted in a statement, “NSSF has championed fair access to financial services for the firearm and ammunition industry and is pleased to witness the end of unfair and politically-motivated discriminatory practices by banking institutions that have a legal duty to service all legal businesses. This rule will ensure large financial institutions that are supported by taxpayer-funded resources like insurances must provide fair and equal access to services based on their objective financial creditworthiness, and not based on ‘woke’ political considerations.”
But those good spirits have changed dramatically.
As reported by The Outdoor Wire, “The OCC proposed the rule in November to ‘codify more than a decade of OCC guidance that stating that banks should risk assessments of individual customers, rather than making broad-based decisions affecting whole categories or classes of customers, when providing access to services, capital and credit.’ The firearms industry was one of those ‘classes’ being denied services.”
Outdoor Wire Editor Jim Shepherd also observed, “The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, in announcing the ‘pause’ stated that the “long-standing supervisory guidance stating that banks should avoid termination of broad categories of customers without assessing individual customer risk remains in effect.”
“It’s probably worth noting,” he added, “that the same ‘guidance’ was in effect when the Obama Administration initiated ‘Operation Choke Point’ – their financial ploy designed to squeeze ‘undesirable’ companies’ access to banking services.”
Shepherd also said this: “That ‘paused’ rule was the one designed to protect ‘undesirable’ companies (think gun companies, gun stores and pawn shops) from wholesale discrimination simply because they were not acceptable businesses.”
The rule is supposed to take effect April 1.
