Guns Government Contracts
State Representatives gather at the Capitol in Phoenix. A proposal that would bar any government agency in Arizona contracting with a firm that refuses to do business with a firearms company got strong support from majority Republicans on a state House committee but tough pushback from the banking industry. (AP Photo/Matt York,File)

From the AP . . .

The Arizona House voted Wednesday to penalize businesses that refuse to do business with firearms companies by barring them from state contracts.

The proposal that passed with only support from majority Republicans drew strong opposition from the banking industry but backing from gun groups and the firearms industry.

The proposal from GOP Rep. Frank Carroll would require companies signing contracts worth more than $100,000 with the state or local governments to certify they won’t refuse to work with firearms-related companies.

Carroll and firearms industry lobbyists said some banks are refusing to do business with firms involved with the firearms industry. They framed it as an issue of banks preventing people from exercising their Second Amendment rights.

But bankers resisted the bill, calling it government overreach for lawmakers to try to force businesses to deal with other companies against their will. Industry lobbyists who testified against the bill also said lawmakers are politicizing an issue that is not present in Arizona.

The 31-28 party-line vote sends the measure to the Senate for consideration.

The legislation follows the shutdown of social media sites popular with extremists, including Gab and Parler, when their web hosts, banks or payment processors refused to continue doing business.

The Arizona bill stands in contrast to efforts in more liberal states to target gun manufacturers.

37 COMMENTS

    • It’s been almost 14 months since this pretend patriot skipped out on 1/6 Freedom Day. Shortly thereafter, he left TTAG after getting powned by some clown who goes by ‘pwrserge’ one too many time. He promised he’s never come back, yet he we are.

      What resolve. What greatness. Lol just kidding 🖕 this guy!

      • Here’s a gentleman who showed up for January 6 at the United States Capitol, and he won a five year, all expense paid vacation to Club Fed!

        “A Largo man who pleaded guilty to participating in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol has been sentenced to 63 months in prison. It’s the longest prison sentence yet for a participant in the insurrection.“

        https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NKIz2uMQyz4

        • Minor MINER49ER And? In spite of what you Lefties claim, 1/6 was a demonstration that got out of hand. Those that have been charged and convicted have gotten what they deserve.

          We are better than your ANTIFA and BLM thugs. We believe in punishing people who have broken the law.

      • You forgot the right for men to use a woman bathroom. A top priority for California lawmakers, Left Libertarians, Liberals, and the Left. All who went after the North Carolina law banning men in women’s bathrooms.

  1. I know this comment will be unpopular but…..
    If a cake baker can refuse to do business with gays, shouldn’t others have a choice of who to do business with?
    Free enterprise without government overreach must work both ways

    • You have an intellectually honest point. I think, though, what we’ve seen with gun manufacturers is pressure from the government on banks not to do business with “sin” industries, gun manufacturers in particular. Remember “Operation Choke Point” launched by Obama and his AG Eric Holder? When government, the Federal gov’t especially, is manipulating the market, legislative response like this is the only answer.

      • While Butterbaugh’s question is legitimate, Bedell’s response is the practical answer to goobermint overreach which the pressure on certain industries to create interference in certain common commerce practices.

    • Let’s cut the chase jimbut…Banks refusing loans to firearm businesses are without any question or doubt sneaking through the back door to in the end deny a Constitutional Right. Your cake is not tainted with conspiracy.

      • Also, by denying loans/banking to firearms-related businesses, they are abrogating the Commerce Clause. “The Commerce Clause refers to Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress the power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.” Since firearms-related businesses are legal businesses, sounds like the banks are potentially breaking the law.

    • I am tempted to agree w/ you but . . . government entities have the right not to do business with certain corporate entities and reject others. Also, when things get really bad (like they are now) fair play is off the table. Those same people and groups that would deny business to gun related groups have zero qualms about using government powers to shut down anything they do not like. So yeah, reciprocity.

    • Yeah, but isn’t the qualifier that they ‘should’ have to ‘right’ to choose who they do business with, but NOT if that decision deprives someone else of their own Constitutional Rights?

    • The cake baker probably doesn’t have state contracts.
      denying loans to businesses in good standing, who have good credit scores is just wrong. How about the bank denying a loan to a marijuana munchables company just because the owners of the bank did not like people that smoke marijuana?

      • Banks do that type of thing already. Some have refused to do business w/ the cannabis industry. Some financial institutions refuse to deal w/ profits generated from legal gambling or porn.

        • federally cannabis is illegal, most banks are federally insured, hence most banks won’t deal with dope money

    • Discriminating against gun owners or effectively locking them out of exercising their rights is not legal. They are acting as third party operators on the behalf of leftist politicians and activists.

      States have a right to say if you are going to discriminate, we won’t do business with you.

      An individual business baking cakes is not the same as all banking, financial, and credit card companies black balling gun owners. We all use these.

      An alternative would be the state saying 50% of such organizations have to be pro 2nd Amendment.

      There are few and few banks out there as the big ones gobble up the little ones and only a few credit card brands.

      • “States have a right to say if you are going to discriminate, we won’t do business with you.“

        So you’re saying that if a restaurant or bakery discriminates against gay people, the state has a right to cut off any state business with them.

        That’s very liberal of you, glad to see the progress!

        • Though courts have distinguished between personally-owned and -operated businesses and larger ones where the owner isn’t the primary worker.
          They’ve also distinguished between general business products and those involving artistic expression.
          It’s a situation where they’ve been carefully very narrow in ruling.

    • There’s a significant difference there: bakers who have won in such situations have been mom-and-pop type stores where the employees-owners are unanimous in their views. Banks are massive, impersonal entities owned by numerous people and employing numerous people with no unanimous views.
      Plus the baker cases IIRC didn’t say they could refuse to do business with gays, they said they could refuse to do pro-gay designs — and the shop owners said they had no issue with merely selling cakes to gays, just doing art work that was plainly pro-gay.
      So there’s really no parallel with banks, because banks don’t do artwork so there’s no freedom of expression issue. If banks still issued their own banknotes there might be a parallel, but as it is all they do is in effect move money around.

    • “If a cake baker can refuse to do business with gays, shouldn’t others have a choice of who to do business with?”

      Yup. So does a bank. And if a bank chooses the wrong way on guns, they’ll be ineligible for state contracts, period. You’re acting like the state is going to shut them down. It isn’t.

      And by the way, the cake baker LOST his lawsuit, so even your premise is wrong.

      • “And by the way, the cake baker LOST his lawsuit’….”

        Which one? There have been several of those cases, and one was won on freedom of expression grounds, with note being made of the difference between a personally-owned and -operated business and larger ones.

  2. The legislation follows the shutdown of social media sites popular with extremists, including Gab and Parler, when their web hosts, banks or payment processors refused to continue doing business.

    Seriously? Facebook and Twitter are the most extreme examples of attacking our rights.

    • Well, yes… and when people tried to free themselves from the tyranny at FB and Twitter by making their own services, the financial industry and the web service industry stepped up and killed the new services. It’s just the next move on the liberal chessboard.

  3. Make no mistake about it…If you are a law abiding Gun Owner, dealer, manufacturer, etc. you are in the twisted minds of Gun Control zealots just another Jew in nazi germany or another n-word during Jim Crow, etc.

    Throughout history Gun Control and racism and genocide and discrimination have always walked hand in hand. Bank on that.

  4. Banking industry: “don’t tell us what to do!”

    Also banking industry: “sure, well seize the accounts of regime dissidents.”

  5. Well, that is one way to fight against the people in this Country who flaunt their Leftness while they do what they claim others should NOT do and that is discriminate against other people. These radical Leftist have given Daniel Webster a new definition of Hypocrite which is “A person not living in reality who actually believes they are better than everyone else and are devoid of logic, common sense, ethics and morality that allows them to actually feel that anything they do is OK regardless of the rules, laws or Constitution as long as it makes them feel good about themselves”. I don’t think I have ever seen such a sick group of people in my 76 years on this earth.

  6. It doesn’t say who they can or can’t do business with. It says we won’t do business with you if you refuse service to the gun industry. They can still screw the gun industry if they want to. Their choice.

      • It has nothing to do with Texas. I’m talking about the proposed Arizona law that says the state won’t contract with any business for over $100k if that business discriminates against the gun industry.
        It doesn’t prevent the discrimination it just says the state won’t deal with them if they do discriminate.
        The law would be better if it said they can’t do business IN the state instead of with the state.
        Hope that says it more clearly.

  7. “force businesses to deal with other companies against their will”
    The law does nothing of the sort. The banks are free to discriminate against gun businesses and can have any other customers they want, except the State of Arizona. They can make a decision: No guns/no State, or guns and State. Localities and retirement funds have long histories of boycotting companies that are involved with nukes, tobacco, do business with Apartheid South Africa, oil/coal, etc.

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