Rahm Emanuel’s “Chicago values” are on display once again. On Friday, the Windy City mayor released the contents of a letter he sent to two major financial institutions, TD Bank and Bank of America, importuning them to stop extending lines of credit to gun makers. Politico quotes a portion of Emanuel’s letter to TD CEO Bharat Masrani, to wit:
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. 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.
There is no “or else” overtly stated in either letter, but both carry the same unambiguous ultimatum: Either join us in our quest to curtail Second Amendment rights, or pick up a weapon and stand opposed. Well, maybe not that last part.
The letters come on the heels of a hardball initiative launched last week by the National Conference of Democratic Mayors (of which Emanuel is a member) that would squeeze gun manufacturers that failed to comply with “public safety goals.” The threat, to limit the purchase of firearms and ammunition for city police departments to gun makers that “play ball,” likely violates a number of federal statutes, including restraint of trade.
As for Emanuel’s letters, Erika Johnson points out that they are efforts to pressure “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.”
Related Articles
- Chicago values, Rahm Emanuel, and the Chick-fil-A controversy
- Gay rights organization to stage ‘kiss-in’ in front of Chick-Fil-A
- Obama exploiting innocent kids to promote gun control: The movie (Photos)
- Gawker publishes list of ‘all the a**holes who own guns’ in NYC
- Gun maker claims BofA froze funds, said he ‘should not be selling guns online’
- CT town to burn violent video games as school begins again (Photos)
- Video mocking celeb anti-gun PSA goes viral
- Police chief boycotts Denny’s after officers ejected for being armed
- 6-year-old Maryland student suspended for pointing finger like gun
- SF HS student suspended over private Newtown poem
- Liberals toy with idea of profiling white males as solution to Newtown
- Newtown 7th grader seeks to rid nation of violent video games
- Parents arm 11-year-old with .22 ‘for protection at school’
- Gun sales soar; LAPD chief wants officers to make random school checks
- In dealing with massacre, Obama lacks what it takes to be an agent of change
- Anti-gun NY Dem threatens to ‘embarrass’ Obama in re guns
- Day after CT massacre, Brooklyn churches offer cash for guns
- Meet Michael Bloomberg, gun control champion and undercover filmmaker
