Is Bank of America Driving Legitimate Gun Dealers Out of Business?

MFI-Miami Is Getting Reports Of BofA Seizing The Bank Accounts Of Firearms Dealers

Steve Dibert, MFI-Miami

“Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class — whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy.” Politics as Repeat Phenomenon: Bene Gesserit Training Manual, Children of Dune-Frank Herbert

A new and interesting twist has risen from the heated debate about guns in America since the Sandy Hook massacre.  The largest bank in the U.S. has apparently been freezing the bank accounts of legitimate firearms dealers across the U.S.  According to an email I received from Joe Sirochman, the owner of American Spirit Arms in Scottsdale, Arizona, the reason was pretty clear and blunt.  After countless hours of trying to talk to someone at Bank of America, he was told by a customer service manager, that his accounts were frozen because, ” We believe you should not be selling guns and parts on the Internet.”

Firearm dealers across the U.S. have been selling out of inventory in the past four weeks due to a surge in gun sales after the Sandy Hook Massacre.  According to Sirochman, American Spirit Arms is no exception, “Our web site orders have jumped 500 % causing our web site to process larger deposits to Bank of America.”

These large deposits apparently threw up a red flag at Bank of America  which caused them to hold all of Sirochman’s deposits from the last three weeks for further review. How long this review will actually take Bank of America won’t say.   This means Sirochman can’t pay his day-to-day operational expenses, employees or buy more inventory.

Sirochman claims he’s been doing business with Bank of America for over ten years and has never had any issue.  He also said that all his permits and audits to sell both retail and online from the U.S. Treasury’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Department of Homeland Security as well as his permits from the state of Arizona are all current and good.

After being scolded by the Bank of America for his choice of profession, Sirochman said,  “I flipped the f**k out and told them that they have no right to make up their own new rules and regs. I told her that This was unacceptable and the those deposits needed to be released ASAP, that we are a small business and rely on the revenue to run and stay operational.”

Regardless of whatever side of the gun control debate you are on, this is just not a cool thing to do to a legitimate business that has not been accused of breaking any laws or been found guilty of doing anything wrong.   This is a clear sign that Bank of America does not want to do business with small independent businesses with ties to the firearms industry.  So instead of sending him a notification that they no longer wish to do business with independent firearms dealers, they just freeze his accounts and force him out of business and hope no one notices or cares.

BofA Will Not Allow You To Use Their Debit Cards To Buy Firearms Or Ammunition

As soon as I originally posted this article (it was up for less than 10 minutes), someone forwarded me the below video that shows Bank of America will not allow their debit cards to be used for legitimate purchases of firearms or ammunition.  Aside from some of the colorful commentary that “Freida” provides, she does bring up a some valid points in her conversation with the customer service representative from Bank of America.

If you are a firearms dealer and have been having problems with Bank of America, feel free to drop me an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 Original linkOriginal author: Steve Dibert