Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
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
This is true but have we seen much of this from recent Administrations? Mostly questioning and reinterpreting the Constitution to increase the range of federal authority. I’m not for those new federal laws.
Laws could eliminate ATF. Would that not be a win?
I’m not against laws that repeal existing abuses but I don’t see a capability for that in the legislative and executive bodies yet. I hope we get there. We also have work to do regarding bureaucrats failing to enforce existing laws.
I’d have a hard time believing this, Bryan. I know that I do want the states to take over ruling on abortion, but we have so many laws ignored, betrayed, distorted or misused that some people might not have a lot of trust in the rule of law. As long as Reps are ruling in the states, I feel fairly confident that we will see helpful laws; but as soon as Dems are in charge, what will they do? Then again, technically the people elected all of them, so they will have to live with the consequences (the laws passed) of those actions.
One function of the Constitution is to protect Americans against abuses by both, either the federal or state governments. When federal laws are passed designed supposedly to protect the people from constitutional abuses by states, it introduces then a new path for abuse by federal authorities. The protections already exists and we need to have the courts make the right interpretations.
If the federal constitution is not in play as has now been ruled in Roe, then the issue is a matter for state law or no law.
I am mistrustful of the law now because it will be selectively applied, ignored, or reinterpreted to mean something completely different than what it was intended for. Then a bunch of lawyers will explain that while the government is acting in a completely lawless manner, we the citizens have no standing to hold it to account. Therefore “the powerful do what the will while the poor suffer what they must”. I am glad that we are having success in the courts right now. I just know that the court has been on the wrong side so many times in the past. It has been really close to doing the wrong thing so many times in the present that I can’t put too much faith in it.
What is is it? Five felonies a day?
There seems to be an underlying thinking in this thread that laws need to be clarified or restricted or nullified by creating new laws.
This is boxed thinking, like non-woke persons objecting to “gender roles” while referring to genders in the same sentence — instead of sexes. (Genders don’t exist in nature. Sexes do.)
Similarly, people, not just in this thread but on Ricochet in general, seem to approach every legal injustice with a call for a new law to restrict it.
“No New Laws” is a meme because it’s true, even if I did invent it myself, which is doubtful.
The point is we don’t need any new laws, we need to repeal most laws.
(Make it just one felony a day. :)
I agree! The problem is that repealing laws is incredibly difficult, although I don’t know why, especially when it’s a bad law. It’s like starting a pilot program, which is never a pilot program, that goes on in perpetuity. Except for Biden’s Executive Orders revoking Trump’s orders, when do we ever see laws being repealed (unless they’re 150 years old)?
And yes, I’m sure there are crazy laws from 150 years ago still on the books. The funny thing is that even 150 years later they can still be pulled out and used to prosecute someone, such as Biden suggested with the Logan Act.
There is nothing as permanent as a temporary or emergency solution.
I remember one author (Heinlein?) suggesting that we needed another house of Congress whose sole job is to repeal laws. All laws would have an automatic review built in and would have to make it through the House of Death after having a chance to show their results. That’s a Constitutional amendment I could get behind.
All I am suggesting are laws that support our rights, like say, enforcing full faith and credit foe CCW permits. Or, federal ban on all magazine bans, or the like.
But yall seem to think relying on the courts is all we can do, or just stock up and wait for civil war.
Using laws also means replacing or removing some on the books.
Basically, most of this thread seems to have g8ven up on the political process totally.
I am done in this thread. Yall stock up and hunker down. I’ll go vote.
I heard about this and have the same worries, but I also worry about the general invasion of privacy involved.
What is the business reason that a bank has in learning how I spend MY money that they are supposedly just keeping and for the privilege, using to earn money. Will I get a notice that I go to the liquor store too often, or eat out, or order Pizza or don’t go to the gym enough, or buy too much gas …..
Will the information go to my health care plan? My employer?
At what point do I get to learn my “Citizenship Score”? Do I have to wait for China to send it?
Seriously – what options do we have to use a bank which is not monitoring us?
Roe v Wade was morally wrong. But morals are held by the populace and the populace changes, whether we like it or not.
I feel a lot better with things left to the states as they were meant to be.
The Feds overreach is legendary, but less is better.
I suppose we should distinguish between laws that negate a previous law (a net minus) and laws that modify laws (a net plus that also adds noise and confusion).
It is difficult because the legislature is a law factory and they cover themselves in glory by spending money towards a shiny new thing and getting press about it (whether that thing will work or not). Repealing a law is an admission that the factory puts out bad products and that just doesn’t look good in a press release.
Additionally, I suspect any law, no matter how annoying/destructive, is passed with a moneyed supporter or PAC in mind; boondoggles make money for boondogglers.
Me too.
ftr, I rate this somewhere between flying pigs and snowballs in hell.
Some of you may be aware of the campaign for Senator in Utah. The above bolded text describes the approach being taking by those trying to oust Senator Mike Lee in favor of Evan McMullin. Senator Romney, doing his usual thing, is not supporting Republicans.
Or flying pigs in hell having snowball fights.😎