CHICAGO (CBS) — Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is putting more pressure on gun makers to get behind his push for an assault weapons ban and criminal background checks for gun purchasers.
This time, he wants to go after their bottom line.
Emanuel is pushing two major financial institutions to stop their financial backing of gun makers, unless those companies support “commonsense reforms, including requiring criminal background checks on all gun sales.”
The mayor is urging that banks to stop lines of credit, financing for acquisitions and expansions and financial advising.
In a letter sent Friday to the CEOs of Bank Of America and TD Bank, Emanuel said: “In the past, the gun industry has stood in opposition to these safety measures. They opposed a ban on assault weapons on America’s streets, opposed a ban on military-style clips, opposed a criminal background check on all gun purchases and opposed any effort to crack down on criminal gun traffickers.”
In the letter, Emanuel says TD Bank offers a $60 million line of credit to Smith & Wesson, which produces the AR-15. That is the weapon used by James Holmes in the Aurora, Colo., theater massacre that killed 12 people. Emanuel wrote.
Emanuel told CEO Bharat Masrani “to use your influence to push this company to find common ground” on an assault weapons ban and gun background checks.
In a separate letter, Emanuel urged Bank Of America CEO Brian T. Moynihan to do the same thing with Sturm, Ruger & Co., which has a $25 million line of credit with the bank.
“Collectively we can send a clear and unambiguous message to the entire gun industry that investors will no longer financially support companies that support gun violence,” Emanuel wrote.
Last week, Emanuel ordered a portfolio analysis from the five pension and retirement funds for Chicago employees to determine if fund managers hold financial interests in companies that manufacture or sell assault weapons.
This week, the Chicago Municipal Employees Annuity and Benefit Fund (MEABF) board voted to divest more than $1 million from three companies that manufacture assault weapons – Freedom Group, Smith and Wesson and Sturm Ruger.
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Black Blade: Looks like they are using a multipronged attack against gun makers, vendor and owners.
__________________ When you're born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America , you get a front row seat. - George Carlin
Gun and ammunition manufactures to Emanuel: We will no longer sell any ammunition, firearms or firearms parts to any federal, state or local leo agencys in chicago ever again. Do that to New York as well. Can you emagine the power of that?
Taxpayer to Emanuel: We will no longer give you any taxpayer money as you continue to piss it away and use it to pay off your union masters. we will hang on to our money and use it to purchase firearms to protect ourselves as obviously your idea of safety for yo citizens ain't workin out.
__________________ "What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?" -Thomas Jefferson- To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
"The whole of the Bill (of Rights) is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals.... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of." (Albert Gallatin of the New York Historical Society, October 7, 1789)
Emanuel To Banks: Stop Supporting Gun Makers
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