Wall Street Is Scared of Guns

A .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle, similar to the one Adam Lanza used in the Newtown shooting. <a href="http://www.gunsinternational.com/BUSHMASTER-XM15-E2S-223Rem.cfm?gun_id=100298066">Guns International</a>

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Over the past year, Wall Street has had a few image problems: money-laundering scandals, interest rate fixing scandals, and mortgage lending scandals. The Street doesn’t seem too worried about playing with fire, though. And why should it be? Profits are up. But there is one thing that financiers don’t want to mess with: guns. Reuters and the Wall Street Journal report that many banks are unwilling to bid for Freedom Group, the company that made the Bushmaster assault rifle that Adam Lanza used to murder 27 people in Newtown, Connecticut in December.

Immediately after the December tragedy, Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity firm that owns Freedom Group, decided to sell the company as a way to avoid negative publicity during the ensuing gun-control debate. In order to create a starting price to auction off the gun manufacturer, Cerberus is planning to place its own bid, in conjunction with other investors, in which it will have a minority financial stake.

But it’s looking like those necessary extra investors are not interested. As the Journal reports that “negative publicity around guns has already weighed on the process. Citing [PR] concerns, some investment banks declined to aid Cerberus in the sale.” Columnist Robert Cyran writes at Reuters that “this cold shoulder from lenders could make selling Freedom Group more difficult.” The Journal, citing people familiar with the potential bid, says that “it remains possible that there will be no buyer for Freedom Group.”

In this case, it seems that Wall Street has a better sense of American public opinion than the Senate, which failed to pass a bipartisan background check bill on Wednesday. Here’s Reuters: “While lawmakers in Washington are only gingerly tackling the idea that some guns are more dangerous than others, this turned out to be an easy distinction for several [of the banks’] reputational risk committees to make… [A]iding a big maker of semiautomatics is a publicity disaster waiting to happen.”

As Cyran puts it, ‘”Making assault rifles, it turns out, has joined pornography on the list of activities with risks that money can’t hide.”

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate