[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 159 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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115th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                 S. 159

                  To terminate Operation Choke Point.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                            January 17, 2017

   Mr. Rubio introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
    referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
                  To terminate Operation Choke Point.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Firearms Manufacturers and Dealers 
Protection Act of 2017''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.

    (a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
            (1) Because of the actions of the Department of Justice and 
        the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (referred to in this 
        section as the ``FDIC''), the program known as ``Operation 
        Choke Point'' has become a threat to the Second Amendment to 
        the Constitution of the United States and to firearms dealers 
        and manufacturers.
            (2) In the summer of 2011, the FDIC published an article in 
        which it designated firearms sales and ammunition sales as 
        ``high-risk'' industries.
            (3) The article published by the FDIC thus put 
        manufacturers and dealers of firearms in the same category as 
        cable box descramblers, credit card schemes, drug 
        paraphernalia, escort services, get-rich products, home-based 
        charities, lottery sales, online gambling, payday loans, Ponzi 
        schemes, pornography, racist materials, and tobacco sales.
            (4) Most of the businesses grouped with the sale of 
        firearms and ammunition involve activities that are inherently 
        pernicious or patently illegal.
            (5) The obvious intent, therefore, of the inclusion of 
        businesses in the FDIC's ``high-risk'' category was the 
        eradication of those businesses.
            (6) The FDIC sought to achieve this eradication by 
        encouraging banks to withdraw credit provided to targeted 
        industries and otherwise terminate financial relationships with 
        the businesses in question.
            (7) FDIC officials discussed mechanisms for guaranteeing 
        that bank officials saw the list and ``[got] the message''.
            (8) The FDIC and the Department of Justice worked together 
        to implement Operation Choke Point to actively realize the 
        objective of eradicating ``high-risk'' industries such as the 
        sale of firearms and ammunition.
            (9) According to the Committee on Oversight and Government 
        Reform of the House of Representatives, the FDIC and the 
        Department of Justice ``may have misled Congress about this 
        partnership'' in connection with Operation Choke Point.
            (10) Committee language in both the House of 
        Representatives and Senate versions of the Consolidated and 
        Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015 (Public Law 113-
        235) completely defunded Operation Choke Point.
            (11) In order to salvage Operation Choke Point, the FDIC 
        removed firearms sales and ammunition sales from the list of 
        ``high-risk'' industries.
            (12) Even after that action, however, there is evidence 
        that the FDIC and the Department of Justice continue to use 
        Operation Choke Point to target firearms dealers such as 
        Hawkins Guns LLC of Hawkins, Wisconsin.
            (13) There is evidence that the targeting of Hawkins Guns 
        LLC is far from an isolated incident.
            (14) It has become clear that the FDIC and the Department 
        of Justice can no longer be trusted to carry out Operation 
        Choke Point without targeting the Second Amendment and firearm 
        dealers and manufacturers.
    (b) Purpose.--The purpose of this Act is to terminate Operation 
Choke Point and any similar program that attempts to infringe upon the 
Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States or eradicate 
the manufacture and sale of firearms and ammunition.

SEC. 3. PROTECTION OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT.

    No amounts appropriated or otherwise made available under any 
provision of law enacted before, on, or after the date of enactment of 
this Act, nor any amounts derived from any fee or other source, may be 
used by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Department of 
Justice, or any other Federal agency to carry out Operation Choke Point 
or any other program designed to discourage the provision or 
continuation of credit or the processing of payments by financial 
institutions for dealers and manufacturers of firearms and ammunition.
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