Marco Rubio Introduces Bill to Destroy Operation Choke Point

“The national lobbying group Gun Owners of America [has] sent out a call to its members to [support constitutional carry]. — Idaho Times News, February 12, 2015

ACTION:  Contact your Senators and urge them to cosponsor S. 477, a bill that will take down Operation Choke Point once and for all.

Operation Choke Point a Threat to the Second Amendment 

About a year ago, the Second Amendment community was rocked by news that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) had teamed up with Attorney General Eric Holder to utterly destroy firearms manufacturers and dealers by cutting off all credit and banking relationships with them.

For its part, the FDIC categorized gun and ammunition sales as a “high-risk business,” lumping it in with drug dealers, pornographers, and Ponzi scheme operators — all of which it was working to completely destroy.

Holder, in turn, would provide the “muscle” — using a program called Operation Choke Point to make sure banks “got the message.”

Senator David Vitter (R-LA) and Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) soon got appropriations language to defund Operation Choke Point.  But when Holder promised to be a “good boy” and the FDIC removed guns from its “high-risk list,” the appropriators relented and allowed the program to continue.

Not surprisingly, every evidence is that Holder was lying — and has every intention to continue using Operation Choke Point to go after gun dealers on a case-by-case basis. 

In Hawkins, Wisconsin, for instance, a bank was just recently pressured to deny credit to the local gun dealer for the purpose of shutting its doors.  (And, incidentally, AG candidate Loretta Lynch lied to Vitter and Mike Lee about knowing nothing substantial about Choke Point, even when warned she would be asked about it.)

So now, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) has introduced legislation to shut the doors of Operation Choke Point — and bar all of the possible escape routes.

Rubio’s bill, S. 477, would defund Operation Choke Point — permanently.  It would insure that the FDIC didn’t use “fees” to fund a program which could no longer go on with appropriated funds. And it would prohibit Holder and the FDIC from reestablishing “Choke Point” under another name.

Furthermore, Rubio is committed to not just allow his legislation to lie dormant.  He understands that he may have to add the proposal as an amendment to a must-pass bill.  This is exactly what we will need to overcome a potential presidential veto.

Rubio’s strategy can become a template for other pro-gun legislation, in addition to putting the Second Amendment community on the offense, rather than simply playing a defensive strategy.

ACTION:  Contact your Senators and urge them to cosponsor S. 477, the Firearms Manufacturers and Dealers Protection Act of 2015.