Citigroup drops gun-seller restrictions adopted after Parkland shooting
Citigroup is ending a seven-year-old policy that blocked its banking services for retailers that sold firearms to buyers under age 21 and those who did not pass a background check, reversing a high-profile decision made in the weeks after the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting.
Citi, one of the largest banks in the country, was lauded by gun safety advocates in March 2018 when it announced its policy, which included banning retailers that sold high-capacity magazines or bump stocks, like the one used by the Parkland shooter. Other Wall Street banks soon followed suit. The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland left 17 students and staff members dead.
On Tuesday, Citi reversed course, saying it would no longer have a specific firearms policy.
The White House praised the change, which comes as the Trump administration has increasingly pressured banks to drop restrictions it views as unfriendly to conservative causes.
“It’s encouraging to see companies like Citi embrace this by ending their discriminatory policies against millions of law-abiding gun owners in America,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in an email. “Any attempt to abridge Americans’ constitutional right to keep and bear arms through misguided and targeted politicization is irresponsible, and the Trump Administration is committed to ending these practices once and for all.”
Trump regularly suggested on the campaign trail that major banks were hostile to conservatives. While campaigning in 2024, he said he would implement regulations to “stop banks and regulators from trying to de-bank you.” At the World Economic Forum in January, Trump publicly criticized Bank of America’s chief executive, claiming without evidence that the company and others discriminate against conservatives.
On Tuesday, Ed Skyler, head of enterprise services and public affairs at Citi, said in a blog post that the company was aware of concerns about “fair access” to banking services and was making the changes to comply with executive orders as well as new regulations and federal laws related to that issue. The 2018 policy, Skyler wrote, was meant to encourage retailers to adopt best practices around firearms sales as “prudent risk management” and didn’t address the manufacturing of firearms.
“Many retailers have been following these best practices, and we hope communities and lawmakers will continue to seek out ways to prevent the tragic consequences of gun violence,” Skyler wrote.
Citigroup adopted the policy in 2018 amid public clamor for businesses to act against gun violence in the wake of the Parkland shooting. Dick’s Sporting Goods, Walmart, Kroger and other retailers made changes to firearms sales policies or dropped gun-related discounts and partnership programs.
“As a society, we all know that something needs to change. And as a company, we feel we must do our part,” Skyler wrote in a 2018 statement about the policy.
Gun violence prevention advocates said Citi was capitulating to Trump with the policy reversal instead of protecting children.
“Seven years ago, after 17 of my peers and teachers were murdered, Citi found the courage to say ‘no more’ – no more financing gun sales to teenagers,” Jackie Corin, a Parkland survivor and executive director of the gun-control group March for Our Lives, said in a statement. “Today, they’re saying our lives matter less than their politics.”