Manasquan, NJ –-(Ammoland.com)- A Hawkins Gun Shop ( www.hawkinsguns.com ) owner has landed in the national spotlight due to his strong vocal opposition to a U.S. Department of Justice program many believe is indiscriminately targeting the gun industry.
Operation Choke Point is an ongoing initiative of the U.S. Department of Justice. The DOJ has implemented the program to investigate banks and the business they do with payment processors, payday lenders, and other companies believed to be at higher risk for fraud and money laundering. This operation, first disclosed in the Wall Street Journal story in August 2013 has been criticized for bypassing due process. The DOJ is pressuring the financial industry to cut off the companies access to banking services, without first having shown that the targeted companies are violating the law.
“It is such a sly thing they are doing, it almost seems unbelievable,” said Mike Schuetz, a private investigator and former Rusk County probation and parole agent who recently opened Hawkins Guns LLC. He was featured last week on national Fox News report on the effects of Operation Chokepoint.
According to Schuetz, he opened up a business account for Hawkins Guns LLC last November at a nearby Heritage Credit Union branch office. About a week later, he said he received a call from the branch manager informing him that the account had to be closed.
“The reason they gave me was that it was because they don’t service businesses that deal in firearms and ammunition, and she listed some other things,” Schuetz said.
He has several recordings of his conversation with the Heritage Credit Union branch manager, which has been posted on the United States Consumer Coalition at https://usconsumers.org/hawkinsguns/.
“We have to answer to the examiners whoever they are,” a voice on one of the recordings can be heard saying. “They give us a list of adult bookstores, cash places, guns, fire arms, ammunition.”
The list of businesses being targeted by the DOJ lumps gun and ammunition sellers in with numerous suspect other businesses including escort services, get-rich-quick products, racist materials, Ponzi schemes and pornography.
U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy describes Operation Chokepoint as a program implemented by the DOJ to shut down legal businesses by taking away their ability to bank.
“They have also tried to smear these legal businesses by also putting in this category Ponzi schemes and X-rated porn shops,” he said.
Duffy, the new chair of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee, wants to put pressure on those involved to end the program and hold accountable the un-elected bureaucrats who implemented it.
“We are going to do it through our oversight and investigation tools. People like to have these programs under cover of darkness where no one knows what they are doing. We are going to expose them and put pressure on the administration to hold the bad actors accountable,” he said.
No hearings have been scheduled, but they would target high level DOJ and FDIC officials, according to Duffy. He said the small financial institutions like Heritage Credit Union are just trying to survive under existing regulations let alone the extra scrutiny, exams and attention that come with Operation Chokepoint.
“It is by way of regulatory pressure they get them to stop doing business with guys like Mike [Schuetz],” said Duffy, who added he knows of other small gun dealers who have been forced out of business and that the short-term loan industry has been decimated.
By subjectively attacking business’ ability to bank the DOJ is aiming to shut down businesses it does not like, according to Duffy. This effort, Duffy said, bypasses the legislative and judicial processes of changing business law.
“Mike’s story because he is so small it is so ridiculous he has been caught up in this program,” Duffy said.
It is not directly the fault of the banks like Heritage Credit Union, according to Duffy. But, he noted, small financial institutions are being hit hard by customers who are pulling out their accounts as a result of Operation Chokepoint…
Read More “Hawkins Gun Shop Owner Takes Aim At U.S. Department Of Justice Program” : https://www.ladysmithnews.com/article_dbf36b5c-a195-11e4-89fb-ff0c8f17ff5d.html