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20×102mm Vulcan
To Limit the Second Amendment, New York Attacks the First
The state has no right to threaten financial institutions that do business with the NRA.
Imagine the following scenario. Imagine the media response.
By October, the governor of Texas was fed up. A well-funded ten-month campaign by Everytown for Gun Safety designed to stigmatize gun ownership was causing support for gun rights to measurably decline. Called “You afraid?” the campaign mocked men and women who carried weapons to grocery stores or restaurants. An associated “courage” campaign asked mothers to hand back their carry licenses, and while most didn’t, the dozens who did received international media attention.
he said earlier this week. He followed up with this pithy statement: “I’m tired of hearing the politicians say, we’ll remember them in our thoughts and prayers. If the NRA goes away, I’ll remember the NRA in my thoughts and prayers.”
Clever. But when statements like this are accompanied by state action, there’s another word that applies — unconstitutional.
New York’s lawyers argue that the state’s letters represent nothing more than government speech. The NRA and the state are engaged in nothing more than a frank exchange of ideas. But while the government does have broad power to engage in its own advocacy, that power has its limits. As the Second Circuit has recognized, there is a difference between “permissible expressions of personal opinion and implied threats to employ coercive State power to stifle protected speech.” When “comments of a government official can reasonably be interpreted as intimating that some form of punishment or adverse regulatory action will follow the failure to accede to the official’s request,” a First Amendment claim exists.
It simply strains credulity to argue that a financial regulator’s letter to the financial institutions it closely regulates urging those institutions to consider “risk management” when dealing with the NRA is nothing more than robust debate. Indeed, the letter at issue is explicitly phrased as offering regulatory “guidance.” The NRA also claims this “guidance” — combined with other state actions — is making corporations fear reprisals if they continue to do business with the NRA. Here’s a key claim in the NRA complaint:
On or about February 25, 2018, the Chairman of Lockton Companies, placed a distraught telephone call to the NRA. Lockton had been a close business partner of the NRA for nearly twenty years; its commitment to the parties’ business relationship had not wavered in connection with the Parkland tragedy, nor the prior Sandy Hook tragedy, nor any previous wave of public controversy relating to gun control. Nonetheless, although he expressed that Lockton privately wished to continue doing business with the NRA, the chairman confided that Lockton would need to “drop” the NRA — entirely — for fear of “losing [our] license” to do business in New York.
New York has filed a motion to dismiss the NRA’s claims, but it is imperative that New York’s actions be subject to full and fair discovery. The extent of public animus directed at the NRA, the specific “guidance” and consent decrees, and the allegations of “backroom” pressures at the very least deserve the scrutiny of civil litigation and at the very least should raise the alarm of civil libertarians — regardless of their positions on gun control.
more at ....
New York's NRA Attack: Andrew Cuomo Wrong to Threaten Banks Working with Gun-Rights Groups | National Review
The state has no right to threaten financial institutions that do business with the NRA.
Imagine the following scenario. Imagine the media response.
By October, the governor of Texas was fed up. A well-funded ten-month campaign by Everytown for Gun Safety designed to stigmatize gun ownership was causing support for gun rights to measurably decline. Called “You afraid?” the campaign mocked men and women who carried weapons to grocery stores or restaurants. An associated “courage” campaign asked mothers to hand back their carry licenses, and while most didn’t, the dozens who did received international media attention.
he said earlier this week. He followed up with this pithy statement: “I’m tired of hearing the politicians say, we’ll remember them in our thoughts and prayers. If the NRA goes away, I’ll remember the NRA in my thoughts and prayers.”
Clever. But when statements like this are accompanied by state action, there’s another word that applies — unconstitutional.
New York’s lawyers argue that the state’s letters represent nothing more than government speech. The NRA and the state are engaged in nothing more than a frank exchange of ideas. But while the government does have broad power to engage in its own advocacy, that power has its limits. As the Second Circuit has recognized, there is a difference between “permissible expressions of personal opinion and implied threats to employ coercive State power to stifle protected speech.” When “comments of a government official can reasonably be interpreted as intimating that some form of punishment or adverse regulatory action will follow the failure to accede to the official’s request,” a First Amendment claim exists.
It simply strains credulity to argue that a financial regulator’s letter to the financial institutions it closely regulates urging those institutions to consider “risk management” when dealing with the NRA is nothing more than robust debate. Indeed, the letter at issue is explicitly phrased as offering regulatory “guidance.” The NRA also claims this “guidance” — combined with other state actions — is making corporations fear reprisals if they continue to do business with the NRA. Here’s a key claim in the NRA complaint:
On or about February 25, 2018, the Chairman of Lockton Companies, placed a distraught telephone call to the NRA. Lockton had been a close business partner of the NRA for nearly twenty years; its commitment to the parties’ business relationship had not wavered in connection with the Parkland tragedy, nor the prior Sandy Hook tragedy, nor any previous wave of public controversy relating to gun control. Nonetheless, although he expressed that Lockton privately wished to continue doing business with the NRA, the chairman confided that Lockton would need to “drop” the NRA — entirely — for fear of “losing [our] license” to do business in New York.
New York has filed a motion to dismiss the NRA’s claims, but it is imperative that New York’s actions be subject to full and fair discovery. The extent of public animus directed at the NRA, the specific “guidance” and consent decrees, and the allegations of “backroom” pressures at the very least deserve the scrutiny of civil litigation and at the very least should raise the alarm of civil libertarians — regardless of their positions on gun control.
more at ....
New York's NRA Attack: Andrew Cuomo Wrong to Threaten Banks Working with Gun-Rights Groups | National Review
