Kent Cartridge Company has made shotgun shells in West Virginia for more than 30 years.
Last month, three financial companies tried to cut them off.
And a Republican attorney general just made all three beg for forgiveness.
Obama's Operation Choke Point Targeted Gun Businesses and the Left Never Really Stopped
Barack Obama's Justice Department launched Operation Choke Point in 2013 to strangle legal businesses out of the financial system. Firearms dealers, ammunition makers, payday lenders – federal regulators leaned on banks to shut them out without filing a single charge or spending a day in court.
The first Trump administration ended it. But some financial institutions kept the spirit alive, quietly cutting off gun-related businesses under the cover of "reputational risk" – a bureaucratic loophole that let banks punish industries they found politically inconvenient.
West Virginia AG J.B. McCuskey had seen enough. On July 30, he announced a formal investigation into whether Ramp.com, Bill.com, and First Internet Bank of Indiana had violated the state's Firearm Industry Nondiscrimination Act – the FIND Act – by refusing payment processing services to Kent Cartridge Company, a Kearneysville-based ammunition manufacturer.
The FIND Act demands compliance – and backs that demand with teeth. Any financial company that discriminates against a firearms business faces the loss of every state contract it holds in West Virginia.
Three Companies That Tried to Debank a West Virginia Ammo Maker Just Blinked
McCuskey gave them a deadline. By August 7, all three had sent letters to his office swearing off discrimination against gun businesses entirely.
Ramp and Bill.com both argued they were not covered under the FIND Act. Both committed to non-discrimination anyway.
First Internet Bank of Indiana took a different tack – insisting it had nothing to do with blocking Kent Cartridge and claiming it was "unaware of any facts" connecting it to the problem. It sent the same assurance anyway.
McCuskey's office declared the matter closed. No lawsuits needed.
"Fortunately, because these entities have affirmed they do not discriminate against firearm businesses and because BILL is now providing services to Kent Cartridge, there is no need to test either side's understanding via litigation at this time," his spokesperson said.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation weighed in immediately.
"This is what it looks like when elected officials are committed to the rule of law and respect for Second Amendment rights," said NSSF Managing Director for Public Affairs Mark Oliva.
"Our industry wants to be able to conduct business on an even playing field," Oliva continued. "West Virginia's FIND Act ensures that firearm and ammunition businesses won't be denied financial services because they don't fit into a 'woke' agenda."
How Trump's Fair Banking Order and the FIND Act Are Killing Gun Business Debanking
What McCuskey did in West Virginia is precisely what President Trump formalized at the federal level last August.
Trump's "Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans" executive order directed banking regulators to strip "reputational risk" from their examination rules – the exact mechanism banks had been weaponizing against gun businesses for years.
By June 2025, the Federal Reserve, FDIC, and OCC had all complied. Federal regulators are now prohibited from pressuring banks to close accounts based on political disfavor.
Operation Choke Point started as a federal program and got killed at the federal level. It still kept happening – at companies like Ramp and Bill.com – until a state attorney general threatened to rip their government contracts away.
That pattern is deliberate. The Left embeds these policies deep enough that presidential orders alone do not reach them. It takes McCuskeys willing to hunt them down one company at a time.
West Virginia has the FIND Act. Other red states are advancing similar legislation.
The NSSF has been tracking state-level FIND Act bills for years – because the gun industry learned the hard way that depending on Washington to fix Washington-created problems is a losing strategy.
McCuskey just proved the better way.
Sources:
- Harold Hutchison, "Companies Back Down After Red State AG's Debanking Probe," The Daily Caller, August 12, 2026.
- Mark Oliva, NSSF Statement, National Shooting Sports Foundation, August 11, 2026.
- "President Trump Issues Executive Order on Fair Banking," NRA-ILA, December 22, 2025.
- "State-Level Firearm Industry Non-Discrimination (FIND) Legislation," NSSF, May 9, 2025.
- "Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans," Executive Order, White House, August 7, 2025.
