Montana Tactical, located in Bozeman, unexpectedly received an email from Intuit, a credit card processing company, saying Montana Tactical’s transactions are considered “MOTO business” (mail order/telephone order). Intuit declined to continue servicing Montana Tactical because the store sells firearms, ammunition and gun powder.

Larry Reynolds, the owner of Valdez Marine and Outdoors in Valdez, AK, is facing similar issues but this time with Square. Square will no longer provide credit card processing for Reynolds’ business because he sells firearms, even though he has used the service for the last two to three years with no issue until now.

According to Michael Montgomery of Class III Enterprises in Brentwood, TN, Intuit denied credit card processing for their store in 2014. They denied processing his payments because he sold firearms, gun parts, accessories and clothing on ebay, Gunbroker, SubGuns and other ecommerce platforms.

Square ToS wrote: 4. Restrictions

You may not, nor may you permit any third party, directly or indirectly, to:

1. export the Services, which may be subject to export restrictions imposed by US law, including US Export Administration Regulations (15 C.F.R. Chapter VII);
2. access or monitor any material or information on any Square system using any manual process or robot, spider, scraper, or other automated means;
3. except to the extent that any restriction is expressly prohibited by law, violate the restrictions in any robot exclusion headers on any Service, work around, bypass, or circumvent any of the technical limitations of the Services, use any tool to enable features or functionalities that are otherwise disabled in the Services, or decompile, disassemble or otherwise reverse engineer the Services;
4. perform or attempt to perform any actions that would interfere with the proper working of the Services, prevent access to or use of the Services by our other customers, or impose an
5. unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure;
6. copy, reproduce, alter, modify, create derivative works, publicly display, republish, upload, post, transmit, resell or distribute in any way material, information or Services from Square;
7. use and benefit from the Services via a rental, lease, timesharing, service bureau or other arrangement;
8. transfer any rights granted to you under these General Terms;
9. use the Services in a way that distracts or prevents you from obeying traffic or safety laws;
10. use the Services for the sale of firearms, firearm parts, ammunition, weapons or other devices designed to cause physical harm;
11. use the Services for any illegal activity or goods or in any way that exposes you, other Square users, our partners, or Square to harm; or
12. otherwise use the Services except as expressly allowed under these General Terms and applicable Additional Terms.

If we reasonably suspect that your Square Account has been used for an unauthorized, illegal, or criminal purpose, you give us express authorization to share information about you, your Square Account, and any of your transactions with law enforcement.

Then, a week ago – May 11th, 2018 – Gunsite got another phone call from QuickBooks. This time it didn’t go as well. The software company informed Gunsite that they were immediately ceasing all business with them. Why? Because they sell and promote firearms.

At first blush this was frustrating news, but Gunsite figured it could be handled. Then the other shoe dropped: in addition to cutting business ties with Gunsite, QuickBooks/Intuit refused to release the money from credit card charges currently in process from sales that had already made.

This amounts to tens of thousands of dollars from not only purchases made in the Gunsite Pro Shop – including hats, shirts, bumper stickers, and coffee mugs – but also money that had been paid for classes taken on gun safety and marksmanship.

senorgrand wrote: Wed May 23, 2018 11:18 am I suppose someone could put enough pressure on Intuit to stop processing payments for Planned Parenthood or the DNC too?

Intuit has agreed to compensate an Arizona firearm training facility for cutting off its credit-card processing and refunding certain sales to their customers.

Gunsite Academy Chief Operating Officer Ken Campbell told The Post that, after friendly discussions Monday with Intuit executives along with Gunsite’s owner, Owen Mills, Intuit contacted Gunsite again on Tuesday and offered “fair compensation.”

“We spent untold man-hours recovering funds and hunting for a Second Amendment-friendly credit-card processor,” Campbell said. The offer of compensation, the amount of which was not disclosed, was made without any threat of litigation, Campbell added.

That didn’t sit well with the company he used to process payments, and they informed him they were dropping his account. Another credit card processing firm told him the same thing: They wouldn’t do business with him.

The moves are lauded by gun-safety advocates but criticized by the gun industry that views them as a backhanded way of undermining the Second Amendment. Gun industry leaders see the backlash as a real threat to their industry and are coming to the conclusion that they need additional protections in Congress to prevent financial retaliation from banks.

“If a few banks say ‘No, we’re not going to give loans to gun dealers or gun manufacturers’, all of a sudden the industry is threatened and the Second Amendment doesn’t mean much if there are no guns around,” said Michael Hammond, legal counsel for Gun Owners of America. “If you can’t make guns, if you can’t sell guns, the Second Amendment doesn’t mean much.”