Visa and Mastercard Don’t Need to Oversee Gun Purchases: Corporate Gun Control is Not the Answer

Andrew Ross Sorkin wrote a disturbing piece in the New York Times which needs to be discussed, refuted, and thrown into the cultural waste bin of terrible ideas.  Purporting to be a look at how “banks unwittingly finance mass shootings,” the piece posits that “some mass shooters have bought expensive firearms, ammunition, and military-style gear before launching their shooting sprees. In eight of the 13 mass shootings that killed ten or more people this decade, the killers ‘financed their attacks using credit cards.'”

Got that logic?  An evil person buys a gun on credit, and now the credit card companies are somehow morally responsible. And — worse — they should take action that could affect millions of law abiding people.

Sorkin argues that the shooters involved in the Vegas shooting, the Orlando night club shooting, and Colorado theater murdering spree all had unusual expenditures that could’ve been noted.  Could we use available technology to alert police when these sorts of unusual expenditures occur?  David French at National Review  argues that “increasing corporate surveillance of lawful activity is not the way to stop the rarest (and most premeditated) of attacks. It is, however, yet another way to shame and stigmatize entirely normal Americans who seek to protect their homes and families.”

French goes on to argue that we do not want our credit card companies to become the gun police.

“Unless you are abnormally wealthy, virtually every gun sale is going to be an ‘unusual’ and expensive purchase. Sometimes (depending on the weapon), the spike on your credit card will be truly noticeable. For example, if I purchase a nice AR-style rifle, optics for the rifle, a decent amount of ammunition, and a quality rifle case, then I’m spending a considerable amount of money,” he writes. “Given that I’ve likely saved up for the rifle, you might see a long gap between any gun-related purchases before I suddenly drop, say, $4,000 all at once at a gun shop. And it’s not just the hated AR-15 that’s expensive. Have you bought a good handgun lately? I spent more than $1,000 on a pistol, holster, and ammunition the last time I bought a weapon. And that was my first gun purchase in several years.”

Exactly.

Sorkin’s thesis would affect millions of gun owners and purchasers, based on the actions of a mere eight people.  It doesn’t take much imagination to envision a proposed system that would trigger the bank to either decline payment or notify the police on even the most basic gun transactions.  Also, creating this sort of system would further stigmatize our constitutional right.

Corporate gun control is not the answer.

It’s time that liberals come to terms with the fact that evil exists in the world.  No amount of policies can eradicate evil.

But a person with a gun can at least defend themselves and their families against it.

Hat Tip: National Review

Image Credit: Pexels