(National Shooting Sports Foundation) NSSF®, the firearm industry trade association, welcomed the introduction of S. 4435, the Firearm Industry Nondiscrimination (FIND) Act, into the U.S. Senate by Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.). This vital legislation will end the ability of corporate entities from profiting off of taxpayer-funded federal contracts while discriminating against a Constitutionally-protected industry at the same time.
“Senator Daines’s legislation is crucial to protecting against ‘woke’ corporations that use their financial might, funded by taxpayers, to deny essential services to companies in the firearm industry,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel.
“Corporations, in particular financial institutions, have been forcing their own public policy agendas that discriminate against firearm businesses, which are Constitutionally-protected. This bill will ensure public policies are crafted by the elected officials the American public sends to represent them and not unaccountable corporation executives that benefit from taxpayer dollars while at the same time using those funds to deny Americans their Second Amendment rights. We thank Senator Daines for his leadership to ensure fairness in business, reasserting Congress’s role in ensuring the federal government isn’t picking winners and losers in the marketplace based on politics and protecting the ability of a lawful industry to compete for goods and services without artificial and agenda-driven barriers.”
Sen. Daines’s FIND Act doesn’t tell companies with whom they must do business. However, just as companies can choose who they wish to do business with, so can the government when it spends taxpayers money.
This bill ensures corporations cannot benefit from contracts and subcontracts funded by taxpayers only to use their financial strength to unfairly discriminate against members of the firearm industry.
For far too long, corporations have engaged in “boardroom gun control” to force firearm businesses to adopt measures that would restrict Americans’ Second Amendment rights. Corporations are free to hold these anti-Second Amendment policies if they choose but would forfeit access to compete for federal contracts.
Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott signed a similar law in his state in 2021 and similar legislation is being considered in other state capitols.
Senator Daines’s legislation would bring those same fair business protections to the federal government to ensure corporate entities are not forcing policies that deny American civil liberties through the benefit of taxpayer-funded federal contracts. Similar legislation was recently introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Congressman Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) as H.R. 6970.
