Top Categories

GE Capital Cuts Off Gun Shops

This probably won’t surprise any of you, but GE Capital, the consumer lending arm of General Electric (GE), announced yesterday that it has halted its lending program for purchases from gun shops.

Yesterday, GE Capital issued the following statement:

As a responsible lender, we regularly review our lending policies and products to meet changing conditions and requirements. In 2008, we adopted a policy to cease providing consumer financing programs to merchants whose primary business is to sell firearms.  Recently, we implemented a more rigorous audit process in our sporting goods segment in light of industry changes, new legislation and tragic events that have caused widespread reexamination of policies on firearms. This process has affected less than 75 retailers (approx. .001% of all gun retailers) and an immaterial part of our sales volume.

Now I don’t think you should be buying firearms on credit in the first place, but this move by GE isn’t that hard to understand. First off, it mirrors the stance of other lenders such as Bank of America, Citigroup and Well Fargo who also do not provide services to virtually anything firearms related.

Second, GE is led by Jeffrey Immelt, who in addition to being chairman of the board and CEO, is also the head of the Economic Advisory Board for the Obama administration. To say that this guy isn’t a friend to liberty is putting it mildly. Yes, I know that GE Capital has its own Executive leadership team, but if you think that they don’t take direction from Immelt you might want to reexamine GE’s structure and history.

You can read more on the GE decision here. This short version is that is just the latest effort by the Obama administration to enact gun control outside of Congress (where they failed miserably). I think you can expect this tactic to continue, and I’m afraid even escalate, in the future.

, ,

8 Responses to GE Capital Cuts Off Gun Shops

  1. Jake April 25, 2013 at 1:16 pm #

    You’re right, that doesn’t surprise me a bit.

  2. William Reich April 25, 2013 at 2:37 pm #

    The way to let all of these lending institutions, that take this anti gun, anti Second Amendment Rights, stance is to simply take your business elsewhere, immediately, and to let them know why. If enough people do that it will have some effect on their bottom line. Home mortgages, car loans, credit card accounts, savings & checking accounts – take them all somewhere else where firearms enthusiasts are welcome & be VOCAL about it.

    • John Baxter April 25, 2013 at 3:23 pm #

      That’s pretty hypocritical of GE considering they are a major defense contractor.

      • Jason April 25, 2013 at 7:19 pm #

        Not hypocritical at all actually they are a big government military industrial complex beneficiary. They do the bidding of the big government goons not the bidding of the little guy trying to have rights at the end of the day.

  3. John Baxter April 25, 2013 at 7:33 pm #

    I bank with Wells Fargo and am going to close my accounts and let them know why.
    Does anyone know what banks don’t support this anti-gun agenda?
    I’m trying to figure out where i can take my business.

  4. Frank Sharpe April 26, 2013 at 8:00 am #

    This, from the originators of the Minigun.

  5. luke April 26, 2013 at 6:57 pm #

    Boycott GE!