Some people just don’t get it. No matter how many times it’s said, no matter the number of laws or even presidential executive orders are published, some people, and the companies they work for only learn the hard way.
NSSF was informed that one of our members, Kent Cartridge Company of Kearneysville, West Virginia, is being wrongfully denied payment processing services by at least two companies. Kent gave NSSF permission to publish this information.
The companies — Bill.com and Ramp — both separately informed officials at Kent Cartridge that they couldn’t use their services “due to compliance and underwriting restrictions,” and “due to restrictions from our partners,” according to emails provided to NSSF. Bill.com still lists “Weapons & Defense Sector” as a “Restricted Business and Industry,” with the clarifying description of “Manufacture, sale or production of arms, military and dual use equipment, weapons, guns, ammunition or explosives.”
To borrow a movie line, “It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off for ’em.”
Even Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America changed their “debanking” tune after years of espousing “woke” financial discrimination policies.
Picking the Wrong Venue
That’s for several reasons. First, West Virginia is arguably one of the most pro-Second Amendment states and one of the friendliest to firearm and ammunition companies. West Virginia’s Gov. Patrick Morrisey has made it a point of signing legislation to protect the firearm industry against this very type of illegal discrimination.
Gov. Morrisey signed West Virginia’s Firearm Industry Nondiscrimination (FIND) Act.
“As Governor, I will always support and defend West Virginians’ God-given constitutional rights,” said Gov. Morrisey in a press release when he signed the law. “The bills I signed today further enshrine West Virginia’s strong support for the Second Amendment. Thank you to the legislature for working with me to get this done.”
Before Gov. Morrisey was elected to his current office, he was the state’s attorney general and fought financial discrimination against the firearm industry alongside other pro-gun state attorneys general.
That responsibility now belongs to West Virginia’s Attorney General JB McCuskey. He’s the state AG who led a group of 26 state AGs for a Department of Justice coalition in a Second Amendment Task Force to examine policies hostile to gun rights.
“This Task Force serves as another example of the Trump Administration’s commitment to using all the tools it has available to protect our constitutional liberties,” wrote AG McCuskey. “It will create a critical space for the federal government to devise innovative strategies to use litigation and policy effectively in the fight to protect the Second Amendment. We applaud your choice to create it.”
AG McCuskey has also been a regular at NSSF’s SHOT Show Attorneys General Forum in Las Vegas where he’s been vocal about ending illegal financial discrimination against firearm industry members.
It’s safe to say that this news isn’t going to go over well with Gov. Morrisey or AG McCuskey. NSSF has learned that AG McCuskey is already looking into this situation.
Again, some people will only learn the hard way.
A Federal Fight
It’s not just state laws that Bill.com and Ramp are running into. There are also federal concerns. President Donald Trump signed the Executive Order Guaranteeing Free and Fair Banking for All Americans. Essentially, the Trump administration did away with the “woke” financial discrimination policies that were allowed to fester under the Biden administration and revived and privatized the illegal Operation Choke Point.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ripped back the veil of secretive policies that denied financial services to firearm and ammunition companies. The OCC, with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation published a Final Rule that eliminated “reputational risk” from their supervisory programs that regulate banking and financial services in the United States. The rule prohibits the agencies from requiring, instructing or encouraging an institution to close customer accounts or take other actions on the basis of a person or entity’s political, social, cultural or religious views or beliefs, constitutionally protected speech or solely on the basis of politically disfavored but lawful business activities perceived to present reputation risk.
It’s safe to say that this won’t end well for the financial service providers that are illegally denying services to Kent Cartridge Company. There are questions that need to be answered, including who knew about the decision to deny services (including underwriters) and when did they know. West Virginia’s FIND Act was signed into law over a year ago. President Trump’s executive order was published nearly a year ago. The OCC and FDIC Final Rule was published months ago. This is not “new” news to financial service providers.
This is also the very reason why NSSF isn’t backing off making these policies permanent through federal law. NSSF continues to support Congressional efforts to codify these protections against banking discrimination by the Fair Access to Banking Act, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by U.S. Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) as H.R. 987 and in the U.S. Senate by U.S. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) as S. 401 as well as the Firearm Industry Nondiscrimination (FIND) Act, introduced in the House by Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) as H.R. 45 and the Senate by Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) as S. 137.
No one wants to see this sort of of financial discrimination ugliness. The financial service providers lose. The firearm businesses lose. Law-abiding citizens purchasing firearms and ammunition lose. That’s why NSSF continues to fight against this.
Still, some only learn the hard way. Safe bet is, the hard way is coming.
Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
Your 2A Purchases May Finally Be Private Again.
“Congress has advanced H.R. 1181, the Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act, legislation designed to stop payment card companies from assigning firearm-specific merchant category codes that many Americans believe could be used to monitor lawful firearm purchases.
In today’s video, I explain what merchant category codes are, why they became controversial, what this bill actually does, and why it matters to every American who values the Constitution, privacy, and the Second Amendment.”
ht* tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiH5u0s80tQ
BREAKING: Third Circuit EVISCERATES New Jersey’s Rifle & Magazine Bans!
“The Third Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, has issued one of the most significant Second Amendment decisions in years. In this video, I break down the court’s ruling striking down New Jersey’s assault weapon ban and 10-round magazine limit, explain the constitutional reasoning behind the decision, and discuss what this means for the future of gun rights across America.
We’ll examine how the court applied Heller, Bruen, Rahimi, Hemani, and Wolford, why this ruling could influence pending Supreme Court cases, and what gun owners should expect next in the ongoing fight to restore and protect the Second Amendment.”
ht* tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAl-y4ODOHI
MASSIVE BREAKING NEWS! FEDERAL COURT FINALLY RULES THAT AR-15 BANS ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL!
“The US Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, just issued an opinion declaring AR-15 semi-automatic rifles and large capacity magazines are protected by the Second Amendment and cannot be banned by New Jersey. Mark Smith, Four Boxes Diner, discusses.”
ht* tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1ROQxtApe0
President Trump, this last Thursday, addressed the nation regarding how our elections were not secure like the democrats and left wingers claimed – and has declassified the intel and is releasing it publicly and some has already been released.
[note: The classified intel was discovered in burn bags placed in a room during the Biden admin to be destroyed but incompetence failed to destroy it – we heard about this previously but didn’t know what was in it but now President Trump has released some of it] – Basically it outlines China and other hostile nations were involved in doing it, mostly China, leveraged against Trump, and in the 2020 election Biden’s favor; Yes the 2020 election was stolen, yes election and voter data was hacked and stolen, yes Obama was involved, yes Biden knew it, yes left wing elements in our government intelligence community hid information from President Trump in his first term about this interference letting it proceed to leverage it in a sort of an attempted coup, and more…those who descended on the capital on Jan 6th didn’t have all this information, but they knew the election had been stolen and they were right. We focus on the Second Amendment, but the entire Constitution and our country was under attack with this election fraud and interference and stealing elections and the left wingers and democrats and Obama and Biden knew it and basically used it to their advantage by letting the election fraud and interference leverage against Trump continue.
although not in the docs, the effects of this, overall had Trump not won the election in 2024 and the democrats been able to win and continue their agenda then you would probably be in the streets right now, or maybe a few months to a few years from now, using your firearms to defend your family’s, self, and the country against left wing elements intending to murder you and take over the country. There is a reason the democrats and their anti-gun org buddies want to disarm you, there is a reason the blue states are going wild with firearms bans. Its got nothing to do with ‘public safety’ or ‘common sense’ – its about them wanting you disarmed to make it easier for them to kill or subjugate you when their agenda can be implemented nationally. There is a reason they wanted your firearms purchases tracked via MCC codes, there is a reason states like California leaked concealed carrier permit holders personal information and addresses to anti-gun orgs, there is a reason anti-gun orgs and states want a ‘registry’ and ‘universal background checks, there is a reason the Biden ATF had their ‘zero tolerance’ thing to drive FFL’s out of business to get their hands on records, there is a reason they do/did much more and want much more – its all to identify who has guns so they know who to target first because those can resist more effectively, and keep people from being armed so they can not resist effectively. Our battle for the Second Amendment in the court room and in print and in our lives is not just for getting that rifle or gun we wanted – its about our rights, yes, but its also a battle for the Constitution and the whole country and for our future generations.
*************************************** Just a few things **** (I posted a lot yesterday but the post vanished) **********************
Trump 100% VINDICATED… Watch This BEFORE You Look At ALL The China Docs > ht* tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXWjDwCIK0s
220 MILLION Voter’s Data Was Hacked By China… What They Did With It Is EVEN MORE NEFARIOUS.. > ht* tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9kCxbJ_ydk
LEAKED CIA DOCUMENT Drops A BOMBSHELL | Americans Were SPECIFICALLY TARGETED Financially > ht* tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKLQy4S2bHY
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Democrats Don’t Want You to See This Video of Biden on Election Interference > ht* tps://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2026/07/17/democrats-dont-want-you-to-see-this-video-of-biden-on-election-interference-n4955177
“Donald Trump delivered a speech Thursday night that set off an absolute partisan meltdown. Democrats didn’t wait for Trump to finish his remarks on foreign interference in U.S. elections to start attacking it. They didn’t even wait for him to start. They spent the hours before the speech aired trying to debunk whatever he was about to say, and once he actually said it, they rushed to microphones and social media to call him unhinged, dishonest, and dangerous.
It’s a funny thing about that panic. Democrats have spent a quarter-century questioning American election results whenever it suited them. They disputed the 2000 election for years. They disputed the 2004 election. They spent Trump’s entire first term insisting Russia hacked the 2016 election and that he colluded with Vladimir Putin to steal it from Hillary Clinton. Nobody called that an attack on democracy. Every election they have lost since 2000 has been questioned in some capacity.
So when Trump raises the possibility that foreign powers meddled in 2020, the outrage from the left isn’t really about protecting democracy; it’s about protecting a result Democrats can’t afford to have questioned.
Trump’s speech laid out a case that China had compromised voting machines, bribed American journalists, and run a fake ballot scheme designed to inflate Joe Biden’s vote total in 2020. It certainly puts that 81 million votes thing into perspective, doesn’t it? China and Iran had worked overtime to keep him out of the White House. Worse yet, Trump said the intelligence community had evidence that meddling was coming, then evidence that it happened, and buried it.
Despite documented irregularities in the battleground states in 2020, Democrats treat any Republican who questions that election as an enemy of democracy. They give themselves a pass for disputing Bush’s win in 2000 and Trump’s win in 2016 because they lost, so obviously the election was stolen.
In the end, if the elections they won were actually as secure as they claim, a few questions wouldn’t send them into hysterics.
…”
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Documents: China Was Blackmailing U.S. Officials, Iran and China Influenced 2020 Election > ht* tps://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2026/07/17/declassified-documents-indicate-china-was-blackmailing-biden-n4955160
” Newly declassified documents show that Communist China was gathering scandalous information on and potentially blackmailing U.S. officials. Besides that, both the Chinese and Iranian tyrants were influencing the 2020 election results in Joe Biden’s favor.
…”
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The smartest people in the room. The libertarians. They agree with the democrats. A private business can refuse service to anyone they don’t like.