I’m sure criminals will roil at the idea that they’ll no longer be able to buy firearms out of the back of a van with a Visa or a Master Card. This is aimed squarely at law abiding gun owners:
What if the finance industry — credit card companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express; credit card processors like First Data; and banks like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo — were to effectively set new rules for the sales of guns in America?
I think they overestimate how much leverage they have over the industry. If forced to, I’ll pay cash for guns. In fact, I’ll make it a point to buy more as a fuck you to the financial industry. I haven’t really been buying for a while. I have little doubt such a move would cause industry upheaval, but it would survive. Maybe Cabela’s wouldn’t, but the industry would.
People hate banks. If the banks and financial industry suddenly “got woke” and started believing their job is to enforce social justice, I’m going to push my lawmakers to start enforcing some anti-trust and bust up all these financial conglomerates.
Critics of using the finance industry to influence gun sales might argue that such a move would be discriminatory against gun retailers. But gun sellers are not a protected class, like age, race, gender, religion or even political affiliation. This would be a strictly commercial decision.
Want to bet on how quickly we can make it one?
I buy many of my guns with cash already, and ammo and accessories when I can as well.
I’ve bought from dealers who give cash discounts, and of course if you are doing a private sale you can;t use a card.
Paypal has been virulently anti-gun for years, as is Craiglist and many other companies emanating from Silicon Valley: in all that time, sales have gone up, not down!
It’s almost like we haven’t recently had a mass shooting that is still largely unsolved precisely because the shooter was so focused on wiping up his tracks. Gee, what could driving more gun sales to cash-only transactions possibly do? Make it harder to follow the sales history of firearms when someone does do bad things? Why, gee, it’s almost like an unintended consequence that’s worse than the so-called solution.
I tend to buy guns in cash. Haven’t bought one in awhile though. Maybe I need to. I noticed in that NY Times piece there was a link to Cabella’s page selling “assault weapons.” Except it wasn’t. It was a page selling centerfire semi-autos. It included what are popularly referred to in the press as assault weapons. But it also included plenty of traditional hunting rifles too. I guess the NY Times wants to ban them.
I tend to buy anything even remotely controversial with cash, when possible. If I were fully paranoid, I’d only buy things with cash. Yes, you can see I made a big withdrawal right after payday, but that’s where the trail goes cold.
Of course, buying guns with cash is pointless because there is already a paper trail if you’ve gone through a dealer, and an electronic record. They *SAY* that they don’t keep NICS queries, but they could do it in secret and really only a relative handful of people would have to know.
Alas, there’s not much of an alternative for online purchases. I’d love to be able to pay for certain things online by money orders paid for in cash, but very few places accept anything other than credit cards these days.
For in-person purchases, cash is king, even at retail shops, but there’s not much choice when it comes to online merchants.
Hmmm… the banking industry is not a “building.” It is people. Let’s say, for entertainment and fantasy sake and nothing else, that those particular people willfully, deliberately, and publicly decide to declare outright war on the people who own guns. And some people in the media decide to jump in as encouragers and cheerleaders.
In this war I know on which side I am placing my bets.
This is what Operation Chokepoint, started by Eric Holder and his POTUS, sought to do.Only this year was that operation disbanded fully. Many businesses were targeted besides makers of custom stocks, barrels and other firearms related stuff.
Why nobody went to jail over it…
QuickBooks online already refuses to process gun-related transactions.
Of course this anti-gunner scheme is aimed at us, not crime.
At best, the anti-gunners think we are a swamp which needs draining to kill the mosquitos of crime.
At worst the anti-gunners want to stamp us out because we represent to them a cultural pestilence, and crime is merely the excuse they peddle to the public.
Living in Colorado, I’ve seen what banking restrictions are like. Marijuana retailers don’t have access to a bank, and therefore no marijuana purchase can be done with credit cards. The retailers are swimming in cash, and have problems storing it, keeping it safe, and using it to pay their bills. This hasn’t stopped the industry from doing billions of dollars of business every year.