Sanctioning businesses for supporting the Second Amendment is senseless

In the last week, an executive order by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and some recent tweets by Beto O’Rourke are starting a new front on the attack on Second Amendment rights. New Jersey’s governor wants to see the laws of the country reflect the extreme restrictions in his state, while O’Rourke has made enacting mandatory gun confiscation a centerpiece of his campaign since the recent mass shooting in El Paso.

But Murphy and O’Rourke have also been going with a back-up plan in case they can’t get elected officials, the courts, or voters to see things their way on gun control. The 2008 Supreme Court ruling in Heller vs. D.C., as well as countless election results, do not bode well for Democrats to force the enactment of an Australia-style buyback. Even if the Senate filibuster were eliminated, as Elizabeth Warren called for, it means that a repeal bill could just as easily sail through.

Murphy and O’Rourke are calling for what are, for all intents and purposes, economic sanctions for gun manufacturers and financial institutions that do not adhere to their anti-Second Amendment agenda. In the case of Murphy, the executive order states that New Jersey is to require that prospective suppliers of firearms “certify adherence to public safety principles relating to firearms.”

New Jersey’s laws include a ban on many popular semi-automatic firearms and an arbitrary limit on magazine capacity of 10 rounds. The state’s licensing scheme not only effectively bans private transfers, but imposes a waiting period that can last for weeks, even when there is a clear threat to one’s life. In the case of Carolyn Bowne, as she waited for New Jersey’s permission to purchase a gun for personal protection, she was stabbed to death by an abusive ex-boyfriend who had a warrant out for his arrest for violating a restraining order.

The principles Murphy set out in his orders include “promoting public safety.” That is a very vague term, but we can make some assumptions, based on the complaint that “the federal government has repeatedly failed to act and has been unwilling to pass commonsense legislation to curb gun violence,” which appears in the order. The order doesn’t just target manufacturers that don’t go along with New Jersey’s extreme demands, it also targets banks that provide services to those manufacturers.

It doesn’t get much worse than punishing a business for simply working with another business.

O’Rourke is taking a more direct approach, calling on banks and credit card companies to simply refuse to do business with manufacturers who make modern multipurpose semiautomatic firearms such as the AR-15. While his tweet is making it sound like it would be voluntary action on their part, since he is running for president, and would pretty much be in charge of the same government that regulated banks and credit cards, there is a very implicit “or else” in his call.

Even voluntary action by the banks would raise a huge issue, though, especially if the Supreme Court were to toss out a ban on AR-15s and similar firearms or magazines holding more than 10 rounds. But what good is a favorable Supreme Court decision if a bank will shut down the account of any company that makes AR-15s? Does it matter if 17-round magazines for a Glock 17 are legal if Visa decides not to let the transaction proceed? Already, Salesforce pulled off the functional equivalent of a bait-and-switch on Federal Firearms Licensees that use their software, adding new conditions that reflect O’Rourke’s agenda.

This duplicity placed many business owners in a difficult spot: Either they submit to Salesforce’s political agenda, or they face major expenses re-tooling the software that runs their business.

O’Rourke and Murphy are banking that enough conservatives and Republicans will balk at using the government to stop the campaign of economic sanctions against the Second Amendment. But government involvement would not be interfering in the free market, it would be preventing a distortion of the free market, and the federal government should act accordingly.

Harold Hutchison has 15 years of experience covering military issues for multiple outlets.