A financial giant blocked a Maryland gun shop from using its financial services after identifying it as participating in a “prohibited industry,” a debanking lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit, filed by the Rockville-based United Gun Shop, accuses Capital One and Melio Payments of arbitrarily preventing it from using their payment services. The gun shop received messages in 2025 and 2026 suggesting the financial entities could not work with the firearms industry, emails viewed by The Daily Wire show.
The apparent debanking comes after the gun shop had previously used Capital One’s payment platform, administered by Melio Payments, for multiple business-related transactions and bill payments, according to the suit.
“As an American-owned small business operating legally, we were shocked when Capital One abruptly stopped processing our payments without any clear explanation and instead cited vague reasons tied to a third-party payment provider we never agreed to work with,” United Gun Shop owner Jonathan Bennett told The Daily Wire. “We filed this lawsuit to hold Capital One and its third-party partner accountable for what we believe is unfair discrimination against our company.”
The lawsuit accuses Capital One and Melio of blocking the gun shop from “making future payments” before later disabling them from completing payment transactions.
“Defendants invoked generalized ‘prohibited industry’ and ‘restricted industry’ classifications after Plaintiff had already been onboarded into the Capital One-branded workflow and after some payments had already been processed,” the lawsuit said.
The incidents caused the gun shop around $75,000 in damages and disrupted its business services, according to the suit.
Reached for comment, Melio said it did nothing wrong. “The claims have no merit, and we intend to vigorously defend them,” the company told The Daily Wire. It did not respond to follow up questions about specific communications to United Gun Shop. Capital One did not respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit.
Capital One previously faced accusations of politicized banking from the owner of a silencer company who testified that he was unable to use Capital One to sell federally regulated suppressors. Capital One says it does not make banking decisions based on politics.
On April 11, 2025, a representative for United Gun Shop met with Capital One after “defendants canceled services without notice,” after the store had started to make bill payments with the banking giant’s platform, according to the lawsuit. A representative from Capital One informed United Gun Shop that it was not prohibited from banking and it had not violated any terms, the suit claims.
Yet three days later on April 14 the gun shop received a message from Melio Payments telling the company it belonged to a prohibited industry even though several payments had already been processed, according to a message viewed by The Daily Wire.
“I understand that you are upset, and I know that some of your payments have processed, while others have not. There are times when we don’t catch it in time, but it appears that your account has been blocked from making future payments, as it appears to belong to one of our prohibited industries,” a message from Capital One Pay Business Bills said.
“Per our agreement with our processing partners, we are unable to process payments in certain industries,” the message added.
United Gun Shop said it never agreed to Melio’s terms and only registered to use Capital One’s platform.
Exhibits attached to the suit showed successful payments being made with the platform starting in December 2024 before starting to fail in March 2025.
A second written confirmation came on March 2026 when the gun shop received a message from Capital One Business saying that “our team wasn’t able to verify that your account and activity meet our eligibility criteria” and that “your account could not be approved and has been disabled from completing any transactions.”
One of the potential reasons suggested in the email why it was listed as ineligible was because “your business is considered a restricted industry.”
The suit said that message was the first “formal notice of non-approval for banking with Capital One” after “an informal deplatforming” and the meeting with Capital One in April 2025.
Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers’ Research, said the messages appeared to show political discrimination.
“Capital One got caught red-handed debanking a law-abiding American business and hiding behind a middleman to dodge responsibility,” he told The Daily Wire. “The lawsuit suggests a clear pattern. A legal firearms retailer was cut off for no reason, even after bank officials admitted no rules were broken.”
The suit accuses Capital One and Melio Payments of violating numerous Maryland business laws including the Maryland Consumer Protection Act, causing commercial disparagement, and breach of contract.
The gun shop has faced legal challenges from the Democrat attorneys general of Maryland and District of Columbia over accusations that it knowingly allowed a gun trafficker to purchase handguns from its store. That case was later dismissed.
Across the state and federal level, Republican officials have moved to implement protections from debanking following allegations that major banks worked with the Biden administration to snoop on Americans who purchased hunting gear or Bibles.
The Trump administration directed federal banking regulators in August 2025 to ensure policies are in place to prohibit politically motivated debanking and stipulate that banking decision are only made based on individual, objective, and risk-based objectives.
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