Jacksonville ammo business owner shares frustrations with ESG policies

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (FLV) – A Jacksonville ammunition business co-owner applauded Gov. Ron DeSantis Tuesday as he signed an anti-environmental, social, and governance, or ESG bill.

Speaking at the governor’s press conference, co-owner of a small Jacksonville business Sovereign Ammo, Laura DiBenedetto, said that due to ESG regulations, she experienced “a lot of discrimination and difficulty.”

ESG is a commercial paradigm that bases investment decisions on political issues like social justice and renewable energy efforts.

“When we were seeking funding, we could not go to a typical bank and pursue traditional lending because of all of these ESG rules. I had to pursue private funding, which added months to the process,” DiBenedetto said. 

The new bill DeSantis signed prohibits state and local government investments from sacrificing investment return to promote ESG investments.

DiBenedetto said ESG is “totalitarianism” and a “social credit system in disguise.”

“It is because of this that I offer my deepest gratitude to Governor DeSantis and all of the hard working public servants who show up every day to make sure totalitarianism never gets a toehold in the Free State of Florida,” DiBenedetto said.

The law said financial institutions such as banks could face administrative sanctions if they deny or cancel services based on political or religious beliefs.

DiBenedetto described the struggles her and her husband encountered while trying to start their business, which she said was due to ESG rules.

She said after moving to Jacksonville in 2021, they immediately started looking for a place to set up their business and securing a lease was “only the beginning” of their troubles.

“Now, one might assume that with the existence of the Second Amendment in place, and with a federal license in place that it would be easy for us to do business. But unfortunately, that has not been the case,” DiBenedetto said.

The business owner said they faced discrimination when it came to setting up a bank account, signing up for accounting software for financial processing, and signing up for credit card processing.

When they were “finally funded” by their investors, they were able to get to work but a few days later, without warning, their funds were frozen because the bank said they were suspicious, even though DiBenedetto was a customer for 25 years.

After five hours on the phone, she said the bank asked for funding verification and she immediately provided it and they still withheld their funds.

“We couldn’t do business for five days. Now we exist in a commodities business place where pricing is a day to day thing. So we lost a lot of opportunities because of this,” DiBenedetto said.

DiBenedetto also explained how her social media content has been censored so many times, she “can’t even keep track anymore.” Most recently, she had her most successful account terminated and had to “beg for it back.”

“Our marketing efforts have been hampered by these ESG policies because Sovereign Ammo is blatantly censored,” DiBenedetto said.