GE Capital, the finance arm of General Electric, is doing what the Senate couldn’t do and getting tough on the gun business. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Connecticut-based firm has started sending notices to gun-shop owners, informing them that customers will no longer be able to take out loans from GE to pay for their firearms.
A GE spokesman said that the company’s decision not to finance gun purchases was the result of “industry changes, new legislation and tragic events.”
GE’s new policy will make a very small dent in a big business, but as major pension funds and private-equity firms also rethink their involvement with the firearm business, it’s increasingly clear that the gun lobby’s biggest fear should be pressure it faces from financiers, not lawmakers.
