Banks Looking at Tracking Gun Purchases

I actually think we should consider filing suit against the banks and the State of New York under the Civil Rights Act. Even if it gets thrown out by the hostile 2nd Circuit, it’s still good PR. Plus, corporations really don’t like being sued. It might tilt the scales and convince them they’re better off leaving the issue be …

The Wall Street Journal, which is unfortunately paywalled, has an article that talks about how Banks are looking into ways to track gun purchases, presumably to shut them down. The problem we face is that the financial industry is essentially run out of New York City, and therefore it will have the cultural inclination to shut down sales, and will also be vulnerable to political pressure.

As I’ve said before, the strategy here is to put us in a position where we have to deal with this new threat, and put us in a position where we have to burn political capital to stop it. This is similar to what we had to do with PLCAA. We probably have the juice, at least in a Republican Congress, to get financial regulations, but it’ll probably cost us National Reciprocity and SAFE, which is the whole idea.

Joe Huffman notes this is criminal. I’ve had my differences with Joe on this issue over the years, but I believe this is an instance where civil rights law can be used, especially if we can show the financial industry is under pressure from state actors. This actually is a conspiracy to deny civil rights to Americans that goes beyond advocating for public policy. It would be nice if Sessions could sort this kind of thing out for us, or absent that, there are civil remedies in the Civil Rights Acts as well.

It would be unprecedented to use Civil Rights suits against banks and the State of New York for the Second Amendment, and the 2nd Circuit is among the most hostile in the country, but I don’t see why we shouldn’t try. If we can get to discovery, that alone would be pretty interesting.

UPDATE: In terms of putting pressure back on New York, if the whole industry did what Hornady is doing, it would put a lot of pressure on the worthless politicians (like Cuomo) pushing this crap.

18 thoughts on “Banks Looking at Tracking Gun Purchases”

  1. Slightly off-topic, but how do so many people get to read the WaPo when you get slammed with their paywall, but many people complain about the WSJ’s paywall and they are a very good newspaper to subscribe to and often they are sympathetic to the gun right’s cause.

    1. WaPo’s paywall can be bypassed with incognito mode, mostly. For now, anyway.

      Also, you can get a subscription for ridiculously cheap if you have Amazon Prime, which I did just recently.

    2. I get a Washington Post subscription through work (I get WSJ and the NY Times too).

      But, prior to that, I would read Washington Post stories in Firefox, which wiped all cookies and other identifying information out as soon as I shut it down. Every five stories, I would close Firefox and then open it back up.

  2. In looking at the Wall Street Journal article, I came across this quote:

    “Knowing where the customers are shopping isn’t a slippery slope to anything, it’s just one data point,” said Nicholas Suplina, director of criminal-justice policy and enforcement at Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group [whose purpose is to push America down the slippery slope of banning and confiscating guns every inch of the way and] whose advisory board includes Warren Buffett and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Republican-turned-Independent. “I don’t think anybody’s asking financial institutions to determine whether a transaction is good or bad, but it may very well be a good idea for them to understand risks inherent in firearm sales.”

    I noticed that the editors of the Wall Street Journal forgot to insert that little bit of information square brackets.

  3. This really looks like, in the long term, that the Democrat party and their Financial Industry based, sugar-daddy, $donating allies, are looking to utilize private-sector/government based collaboration to by-pass the 1986 FOPA, and institute a National Gun Registry Database, which is much more than meets the eye hear. The financial sector will be the chief operator of it, all through following Democrat Party orders.

    This is actual fascism; When the government bureaucraticly controls and legislates the Private Sector through police-state tactics. The only missing side of this fascist tactic is a centralized, military dictatorship based, system of government.

    1. They tried this before, back in the Clinton administration. As long as we control the levers of government we can outlaw it but if we don’t look out.

      1. I think it’s past time to bring anti-trust actions against these giant banks. Break them up to reduce the power any one actor holds.

  4. How is this any different than redlining mortgages to minorities? I thought equal opportunity lending laws and the like already told financial institutions that they can’t discriminate by denying services to lawful individuals and businesses?

      1. could say the same for medical clinics but try to cut off access to credit for say an abortion clinic and it will be argued as an access infringement, especially if it’s the gov’t pushing the bank to cut credit.

        If we’re going to win, we need to stop being so timid and use their own tactics against them. At every place our allies hold political power, the full fury of the regulatory state needs to be brought to bear.

  5. The authoritarian impulse running loose today in American society is extremely troubling. This action by the banks is just one more sign of it.

    And yes, we need to push back and push back hard within legal and ethical boundaries. The Hornady ammunition boycott of New York law enforcement agencies leads the way.

    By far the largest LEA within New York State is the New York City police department. As far as I can tell their duty ammo is Speer Gold Dot Hollow Point 9mm +P 124 grain.

    If other ammunition companies won’t join the Hornady boycott, we should boycott those companies until they do. We have that power. We did it back in 2000 when we brought S&W to heel after they colluded with the Clinton administration, we could do it again today.

    If anti-gun State governments want to play the anti-gun game, they can build their own ammo factories to arm their cops.

    I would suggest adding Massachusetts and California to the boycott too, since those three States are the bleeding edge of anti-gun politics.

  6. Love Hornady’s response to this. I want other firearm and ammunition manufacturers to do this. That will really cause some blowback.

  7. This is preparation for the end of PLCAA. It doesn’t make sense to “minimize risk” by getting out of the firearms business unless the people who stay in are open to lawfare.

    But once PLCAA is gone (and that’s a proudly proclaimed goal of the antis) then this makes sense.

    1. Amen to your points. It’s private sector and bureacratic fiat based collaboration between private sector entities and a political splinter faction of the State circumventing the Legislative Statute of the PLCAA. Those actions are the definition of fascism.

      Sebastian, Bitter, and, HappyWarrior 6, as well as several other of the bloggers here have all suggested that the best possible thing for the Firearms Industry is to become a “Cottage Industry”. Time for the gun industry to establish it’s own independent Credit Union based financial operations.

      The antigunners are looking to bankrupt the 2nd Amendment out of existence.

      1. Once PLCAA is gone, it won’t matter – the credit union will be sued into a smoking crater.

        Also, starting a bank is hard. Paypal tried that, and basically had to stop doing it and become a credit card processor instead.

        1. There needs to be a Federal Constitutional Amendment to ban these Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, aka, SLAPP Lawsuits. Antigun Billionaires like Bloomberg, Tom Steyer, Eric Schmidt, and George Soros as the prime examples are worth more $Money than the entire Gun-Industry, and can use wreckless lawsuits to bankrupt the 2nd Amendment into oblivion.

          I really have no respect for the life of antigunners like Michael Bloomberg. He is an
          “Old-World”, European Type, Fabian Socialist Aristocrat who has dedicated his life to the cause of Civilian Disarmament and the total ban of Civilian Firearms Ownership. He believes he is entitled to strip me of my rights, and to say I’m angry is an understatement.

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