The Trump administration bolstered Americans’ constitutional right to keep and bear arms, vowing to overturn any and all encroachments on the Second Amendment enacted under the Biden-Harris administration.

“The Second Amendment is an indispensable safeguard of security and liberty,” declared President Donald Trump’s executive order on “Protecting Second Amendment Rights,” which he signed last Friday, February 7. “It has preserved the right of the American people to protect ourselves, our families, and our freedoms since the founding of our great Nation. Because it is foundational to maintaining all other rights held by Americans, the right to keep and bear arms must not be infringed.” The order requires the attorney general to review all the Biden administration’s executive orders, regulations, guidance, plans, international agreements, or agency actions that infringe on the Second Amendment and present an action plan within 30 days.

The gun rights order from President Trump — whose sons Donald Jr. and Eric are competitive shooters — targets Joe Biden’s “enhanced regulatory enforcement policy” pertaining to firearms and/or federal firearms licensees (FFLs), which results in automatic loss of license for relatively minor infractions. That led to 338 license revocations between Biden’s inauguration and June 2024, according to Master FFL, which helps gun dealers comply with the federal regulatory burden. License revocations prevent Mom-and-Pop firearms dealers from earning their livelihood.

The Trump White House also noted, in his first term, “President Trump removed the United States from the United Nations (UN) misguided Arms Trade Treaty to protect Americans from the threat of global regulations of conventional firearms.”

The firearms industry as a whole came under hostile fire from his two Democratic predecessors, said Trump administration officials. “Firearms manufacturers have been de-banked or denied services simply because they make guns — which allow Americans to exercise a constitutional right,” adds a White House fact sheet.

Operation Choke Point 1 and 2

Upon taking office, Barack Obama launched Operation Choke Point, which discouraged bankers from offering their services to disfavored industries, including legal firearms dealers. “The original Operation Choke Point began in 2013, when the Obama DOJ, working with the FDIC, bullied banks to stop serving the firearms industry. This had the intended impact of choking out deposit and lending services to the firearms industry, which Old Glory Bank has been working hard to solve since we launched in April of 2023,” testified Mike Ring, who founded Old Glory Bank with country music star John Rich and talk show host Larry Elder, before the Senate last week.

While the effort officially ended in January 2015, critics said the Obama administration cranked up pressure against the same industries throughout its time in office. After his departure from office, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) harangued bank executives to stop serving the fossil fuel industry, as well as partnering on the Fossil Free Finance Act to enact their views into law.

“Under the Biden administration, we’ve seen the rise of what many are calling Operation Choke Point 2.0, where federal regulators exploited their power, pressuring banks to cut off services to individuals and businesses with conservative disposition, or folks aligned with industries they just didn’t like,” explained Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.) during his opening statement at the hearing of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. “[D]ebanking someone over their political ideology is un-American and goes against the core values that our nation was founded on.”

Last week, Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) revealed that a page from the Federal Reserve’s Internal Implementation Handbook warns banks to be cautious about offering their services to “controversial” industries.

Bipartisan Opposition

Opposition to debanking created a rare moment of bipartisan agreement between Scott and one of the chamber’s most outspoken “progressives.”

“For me, this is straightforward. It doesn’t matter who you voted for, what you believe, or the origin of your last name — people shouldn’t be arbitrarily denied access to their banks, locked out of their accounts, or stripped of their banking privileges,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

“Donald Trump was onto a real problem when he criticized Bank of America for its debanking practices,” continued Warren, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination to unseat him in 2020. The Bank of America debanked Indigenous Advance, a U.S. charity dedicated to serving Uganda’s poor, and a church in Memphis. “[U]pon review of your account(s), we have determined you’re operating in a business type we have chosen not to service at Bank of America,” said the bank in an April 2023 letter. The bank later explained allowing the charity to use its services “no longer aligns with the bank’s risk tolerance.”

“Nonprofits and charities operating internationally have been de-banked through no fault of their own,” said Warren. The Massachusetts senator went on to cite 11,955 complaints over closed accounts lodged with the controversial Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Senator Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who reintroduced the Fair Access to Banking Act, revealed that “some of the bank presidents, who have never dared say it out loud, tell me they support” the bill, because they want the “burden” of “this political pressure from their 30-year-old staff, or the regulator they fear, or the political movement of the day, or the activist investors trying to impose their values … removed from them.”

“I commend the new FDIC leadership for its commitment to transparency, but it is a shame that it took an election — an election — for the agency to begin following the laws of our country,” said Scott.