Chalk one up for the firearm industry. Citgroup, one of the largest corporate banking institutions in the nation, announced it is changing its financial services policies that boxed out members of the firearm and ammunition industry.
That’s welcome news, and it is a hard-fought win for which NSSF has been battling for years. Citigroup’s Executive Vice President of Enterprise Services and Public Affairs Ed Skyler wrote in a blog that they finally recognize that the firearm industry has been a leader in responsible firearm ownership and safety all along.
“Many retailers have been following these best practices,” Skyler wrote, “and we hope communities and lawmakers will continue to seek out ways to prevent the tragic consequences of gun violence.”
That’s the same Skyler who announced Citigroup was cutting off financial services to the firearm industry in 2018, in the wake of the tragedy at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Skyler, formerly a deputy mayor to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, announced then that Citigroup would require firearm industry members who wanted to bank with them to agree to not sell a firearm to anyone who hasn’t passed a background check, enact age-based gun bans that unconstitutionally froze law-abiding adults under 21 from lawful firearm purchases and ban the sale of bump stocks and standard-capacity magazines.
To be clear, all firearms sold at retailer require an FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check (NICS) verification. That point-of-sale background check was the firearm industry’s idea. As well, the firearm industry has not adopted any of these other unconstitutional schemes.
It’s Been a Long Road, and There’s a Long Road Ahead
It wasn’t just Citigroup. Similar discriminatory policies were adopted by other banking giants, including Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo. NSSF has been a leader in pushing back against these discriminatory policies that originally were rooted in the ill-advised and illegal Operation Choke Point, a scheme hatched under President Barack Obama and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. That scheme weaponized the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) to stop financial institutions from offering services to some regulated industries in an attempt to choke off banking services.
The FDIC included federally licensed firearm retailers and other companies in the firearm and ammunition industry – some of the most heavily regulated businesses in the country – on this list of risky businesses without any evidence or justification. The operation was shuttered in 2017 and subsequently investigated by Congress. After that, it was privatized by corporate banks which discriminated based on “risk assessment” that had no criteria involving creditworthiness.
NSSF fought back and the results were evident to banks. NSSF was successful in passing the Firearm Industry Nondiscrimination (FIND) Act in 11 states, which prohibits state agencies and local government entities from entering into contracts with corporations that discriminate against the firearm industry.
Citigroup was found to be in violation of the Texas FIND Act, enacted in 2021, and barred from competing to underwrite $3.4 billion in state bonds, costing the bank hundreds of millions of dollars in fees.
Similar legislation is pending in Congress. U.S. Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) introduced S. 137, and U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) introduced H.R. 45, both titled the Firearm Industry Nondiscrimination (FIND) Act.
NSSF has also worked closely with Congress to advance the Fair Access to Banking Act, introduced by Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) as S. 401, and Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) introduced H. R. 987 under the same title. The Fair Access to Banking Act would stop corporate banks from picking winners and losers based on executives’ personal politics. The legislation also protects banks from outside pressure by special interest groups seeking to use the banks as a weapon to advance their political agenda.
Voters’ Voices Counts
The pressure came from voters, too. Pro-firearm industry voters turned out for President Donald Trump and he made “debanking” an early priority.
He excoriated Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan while speaking at the World Economic Forum 2025 in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year. His remarks included J.P. Morgan Chase for their discriminatory policies too.
“You and Jamie [J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon] and everybody else, I hope you start opening your banks to conservatives,” President Trump said directly to Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan. “What you’re doing is wrong.”
WEF WRECKING BALL: Trump tells Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan that big banks need to stop DEBANKING conservatives pic.twitter.com/gp0sRfwXRM
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) January 23, 2025
NSSF is guardedly optimistic on Citigroup’s announcement. There’s wisdom in President Ronald Reagan’s advice to “trust, but verify.” That’s why NSSF will be watching and checking with our members to see if this is a substantive change in policy or just a superficial change while Citigroup continues to discriminate in private beyond closed doors where it is harder for the public to detect.
Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
“Many retailers have been following these best practices, and we hope communities and lawmakers will continue to seek out ways to prevent the tragic consequences of gun violence.”
That right there, specifically the “gun violence” part.
They may have in ‘practice’ changed for a PR purpose and to avoid the legal issues that would have soon followed from the Trump DOJ if they did not change. What they were doing is illegal, and under the lawless unconstitutional-acts Biden junta tyranny DOJ nothing would have happened to them, but under the Trump DOJ they would have been prosecuted and Bondi was already looking into it. So I seriously doubt they had a ‘come to Jesus’ moment and realized the error of their ways, and the use of the made up term “gun violence” indicates they are still hanging on to their anti-gun bias.
then this part:
“We will update our employee Code of Conduct and our customer-facing Global Financial Access Policy to clearly state that we do not discriminate on the basis of political affiliation in the same way we are clear that we do not discriminate on the basis of other traits such as race and religion. This will codify what we’ve long practiced, and we will continue to conduct trainings to ensure compliance. ”
Did you spot the lie in that? Here, let me point it out to you: “This will codify what we’ve long practiced…” < that's the lie. Its a lie because they in fact DID NOT 'practice' non-discrimination "on the basis of political affiliation … and religion…" [and gun manufacturing/businesses], and in fact it was standard practice, even written into their own documents, to discriminate "on the basis of political affiliation … and religion…" [and gun manufacturing/businesses] by designating them a 'bad risk' to appease the lawless unconstitutional-acts Biden junta tyranny and bend to the will of democrat politician marxists and left wing marxists.
CitiBank is merely pausing its anti-gun discrimination practices. Once they believe no one is paying attention any longer, or an extreme, anti-gun president (and/or Congress) comes to the forefront, they will merely revert back to their true colours. Citi Bank is not sorry for their anti-gun practices. They are only sorry it brought them bad publicity.