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They Keep Trying to Take Our Guns
Once again, the federal government is conspiring with the political Left to take away our guns. The bureaucrats think they have skirted around a violation of the Constitution by conspiring with the private sector, but they will discover soon enough that they are wrong.
Their strategy was initiated by Amalgamated Bank, and a group of Senators figured out their intentions and wrote to Priscilla Sims Brown, President and CEO of Amalgamated Bank, calling her out on her efforts:
Last month, gun control advocates hailed the creation and adoption of a new sales code targeted at identifying purchases made at U.S. gun stores. The code was promoted as a way to help banks and credit card companies identify and ‘recognize dangerous firearm purchasing trends,’ thus improving public safety. It won’t.
In response to these efforts, the Senators’ letter threatened further action, including hearings. No legal action has been taken to date.
The code change is not the issue, but it risks that gun-control advocates will further interfere with second amendment rights and privacy issues:
In other words, the danger here doesn’t necessarily come from the code change itself — which is mostly benign. Instead, it comes from how opportunists will seek to twist and use the data to say something that it doesn’t and to target peaceable people without cause. And it becomes even more dangerous if the government seeks to use that data to conduct investigations.
There are many unanswered questions that have surfaced:
Would a first-time gun sale on an account be listed as dangerous or out of the ordinary?
Would the purchase of an item over $1,000—a figure not hard when considering even a mid-shelf firearm or a modest amount of ammo these days considering runaway inflation—trigger a warning?
Would purchasing two or more guns in a month, not uncommon especially around Christmas, lead to a red flag in the system?
Would merchants that see a spike in sales in tune with periodic changes such as hunting season be placed under scrutiny?
No one is saying.
The threats that could result are even worse:
If fully implemented by the various payment processors, the hope of gun control groups for this new MCC is that it would create a registry of gun owners that they have long sought and provide them with another tool to attack lawful industry when firearms are used in crime.
Several provisions in federal law, but most notably a key part of the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, prohibit the federal government from centralizing most firearm records into a registry. The new MCC could provide a way for the government to outsource the creation of a registry that the government itself is prohibited from creating. If banks and payment processors share their records with the government, that would be a major step towards the registration of all gun owners in America.
Fortunately, the Attorneys General of 24 states are acting, opposing the new merchant category code, including Tennessee, Montana, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming, West Virginia:
To their credit, the AGs of almost half of these United States are fighting back. Their letter was intended to alert the chief executives of VISA, MasterCard, and American Express that the new MCC is potentially a violation of consumer protection and antitrust laws.
I’ve seen no update on whether the Senate has taken further action.
Sometimes I feel as if the attacks on our rights are endless. It would be easy just to overlook some of them just to get out from under the onslaught.
But at some point, gun rights may make the difference between life and death.
Literally.
[photo courtesy of unsplash.com]
Published in Guns
Whatever happened to this “Constitutional right of privacy” the left trumpets when it comes to abortion?
Let’s see if Republicans do anything if they take over the House and Senate . . .
You can’t make a conspiracy out of a single entity.
I stand corrected, Bob! Good point!
I so wish . . . but I’m not optimistic.
It lasted just as long as “my body, my choice” did in the face of vaccine mandates. Apparently there is only one thing that can be a choice in America, and only one thing protected by the right of privacy.
I’m hoping that the state AG’s threats will cause them to pull back, and if they don’t pull back, they will take them to court. I’ve had just about enough challenges to my second amendment rights. It’s too bad that the Senate doesn’t seem as concerned as I would like them to be.
Donate to groups that are fighting it. Here in NY we have the NY State Rifle and Pistol Association and the Shooters Committee On Political Education, NYSRPA and SCOPE. They both get regular donations from me to support their legal work. I maintain my NRA membership because of the Instructor program, and hope they can clean up their management mess, but my money goes to the specific groups.
BTW, the photo from unsplash shows my little Glock 43. Isn’t it cute?
Adorable!
The state’s may have to pass legislation making it a crime for anyone to act taking guns from law-abiding residents of the state.
Sideways thought: data gets stolen all the time. Perhaps a law or suit to destroy companies that fail to secure data might be in order, particularly if said data is not essential to their workings.
Backdoor gun registries must not happen, but there is something about ‘my data’ that makes me think I should have more control over what can be done with it than I do.
Added: There are municipalities in which newspapers publish arrests and arrestees. Fair play to them. But perhaps less so when a website publishes the names of thought criminals.
Unfortunately I like your suggestion, but you’ve already probably figured out that it will be too difficult to implement. Trying to destroy any company would be hard enough, but figuring out what data is essential to their workings will be worse. The govt. will ensure they are protected, one way or another.
Too right.
Most of my policy recommendations are just grousing standing on a box.
But you never know–one day you could come up with something brilliant! I’m ready!
They will never stop. Never.
We need Federal Laws protecting gun rights.
Don’t we have that in the Constitution? Seems to me we need state laws that will make it a crime if a federal official acts to take guns where state law allows guns.
The Constitution needs to be backed up.
I think their should be no limits on guns ownership at all, including military weapons.
The day is soon come that we can print them all.
I think we better get federal officials to do their jobs since laws on the books don’t seem to mean much to them. We can see that every day in every way.
We shouldn’t have to re-fight a won battle over and over again.
Not sure what the mechanism would look like, but states should take some pain for making unconstitutional laws and policy.
And for the record, I felt the same way about Roe v Wade before the recent new SCOTUS decision. The chipping away at accepted rights through clever legal inconveniences is tedious, exhausting, and expensive.
We need people to abide by the plain simple language of Article 2 of The Bill Of Stuff Too Important for You to Vote On.
Hear! Hear!
Laws can reinforce the Constitution
In the meantime, maybe we should pay cash for guns and ammo.
They can, but gun-grabbers are sure that they are ‘clarifying’ that same Constitution.
Something to consider, Steve. Then again, they will probably find an easy way to track those, too.
Ok so let’s just depend on just the courts
I hear you.
And pray that Clarence Thomas lives forever…or at least for the next few decades.
I think a safer path is to stockpile ammunition. Laws and the courts can be suborned. Parchment walls may not be enough to guarantee our liberty for much longer.
That does not make it wrong to push for laws.
I am not sure why the membership of Ricochet is against this.
I guess Roe was only wrong in that it was the wrong way and turning things back to the states was bad.