A North Carolina gun seller won a duel with his local bank, after the lender denied his web-based business its services, erroneously citing a controversial banking regulation, he told FoxNews.com Thursday.
(FOX)- For months, Luke Lichterman had tried to get his Hometrust Bank branch to process purchases, but officials told him a 2013 Department of Justice regulation dubbed “Operation Choke Point” barred them from serving a “risky” business, he said.
“When I asked the bank representative what other businesses are considered ‘risky,’ the first word out of his mouth was ‘pornography,’” Lichterman, who is 75 and disabled from a serious car accident, told FoxNews.com. “I was both deeply offended and highly amused by that.”
Lichterman’s online store, http://www.huntinganddefense.com, takes digital payments, but without his bank’s help he would have been forced to used costly transaction services that would have taken a huge bite out of his already-thin profit margins, he said.
“I was aware of Operation Choke Point and that it was intended to make it impossible for people with a fraudulent business to do banking,” Lichterman said. “But I sell firearms, which is constitutionally protected, and am licensed by the federal government to sell firearms.”
Fortunately for Lichterman, after several discussions with bank officials, some negative publicity and pressure from Second Amendment advocacy groups, the bank reversed its position.
“The pressure brought by groups like the Second Amendment Foundation against ‘Operation Choke Point’ and financial institutions who were intimidated by the Obama administration has resulted in not only exposing the attack on the lawful firearms industry but has forced many banks to back off this attack on a constitutionally protected right,” said Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation.