Rahm Emanuel to banks: Hey, how about you stop serving firearms manufacturers?

Via Politico… just wow. Welcome to Chicago, I suppose:

Emanuel is sending letters to two major financial institutions, TD Bank and Bank of America, which offer lines of credit to gun makers suggesting that they stop lending money to the manufacturers if they don’t come out for new gun restrictions.

“TD Bank currently aids the gun manufacturing industry through a $60 million revolving line of credit with Smith & Wesson, a gun manufacturer that produces the AR-15 — an assault weapon that was used by James Holmes to kill 12 people and wound 58 in a crowded movie theatre in Aurora,” Emanuel’s missive to TD CEO Bharat Masrani states. “I ask you to use your influence to push this company to find common ground with the vast majority of Americans who support a military weapons and ammunition ban and comprehensive background checks.”

Noting that Chicago’s municipal employees and teachers had already divested money in pension funds from gun makers that are opposing new gun laws, the White House chief of staff-turned-mayor wrote: “Now we need you and other commercial banks to join this fight for safer streets. Collectively we can send a clear and unambiguous message to the entire gun industry that investors will no longer financially support companies that profit from gun violence.”

Emanuel sent a similarly worded letter to Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, a bank that does business with Sturm, Ruger & Co.

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Actually, I’m pretty sure that Sturm, Ruger & Co’s and Smith & Wesson’s profits don’t come from gun violence, but rather from the millions of law-abiding American citizens legally buying their completely legal products — and that includes military and law enforcement, I might add. And Emanuel is lobbying these major and publicly traded financial institutions to actively discriminate against law-abiding companies that don’t happen to support his entirely political gun-related agenda? A political agenda which, by the way, will not help to reduce violent crime? Would this even hold up in a court of law?

It’s like they’re not even trying to hide the lobbying, cronyism, and corruption anymore. Kind of like someone else we all know over in Chicago-on-the-Potomac.

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Ed Morrissey 10:00 PM | November 22, 2024
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