Cuomo Might Just Crush A Legitimate Business And Chill The Second Amendment In One Fell Swoop

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is trying to scare state banks and insurance companies from doing business with the NRA and firearms manufacturers.

As the New York Daily News reports, Cuomo’s Democratic administration is sending a letter to warn the financial sector about the “reputational risk” of dealing with either the NRA or gun makers and to “urge all insurance companies and banks doing business in New York to join the companies that have already discontinued their arrangements with the NRA, the gun industry, or other promoters of guns.”

The correspondence from the state’s department of financial services stops short of threats or punishment for banks and insurance companies, yet casts possible business relationships with the gun industry as running contrary to public sentiment following the Parkland, Fla. shootings.

“The tragic devastation caused by gun violence that we have regrettably been increasingly witnessing is a public safety and health issue that should no longer be tolerated by the public and there will undoubtedly be increasing public backlash against the NRA and the gun industry,” financial services superintendent Maia Vullo writes.

Vullo observes that MetLife quickly moved to distance itself from the NRA and suggests other members of the financial sector should “take prompt actions… [to] promote public health and safety.”

New York NRA board member Tom King called the letter “extortion.”

King, who is a also president of New York’s Rife & Pistol Association, told the Daily News it’s “a veiled threat.”