Firearms Reporter Torches NYT’s Mass Shootings Piece In One Tweet
So, what other aspects of Second Amendment rights can the liberal media target? They know universal background checks will never pass Congress, even with a Democratic House. It would suffer legislative death in the GOP Senate. Granted, at the state-level, anti-gunners have experienced more success, even pressuring two Republican A-rated governors, Rick Scott and Phil Scott, of Florida and Vermont respectively to sign legislation that increases the age of purchase for all firearms to 21. Yes, it’s grossly unconstitutional, and lawsuits have been filed in the Sunshine State. Yet, there are backdoor ways for anti-gun liberals to chip away at gun rights. One of them is through banks. Citigroupand Bank of America are two major institutions that are placing limits on clients concerning firearms sales. In a recent piece, The New York Timesdecided to reporton how credit cards have been used to finance mass shootings:
The New York Times reviewed hundreds of documents including police reports, bank records and investigator notes from a decade of mass shootings. Many of the killers built their stockpiles of high-powered weapons with the convenience of credit. No one was watching.
Two days before Omar Mateen killed 49 people and wounded 53 more at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, he went on Google and typed “Credit card unusual spending.”
Mr. Mateen had opened six new credit card accounts — including a Mastercard, an American Express card and three Visa cards — over the previous eight months. Twelve days before the shooting, he began a $26,532 buying spree: a Sig Sauer MCX .223-caliber rifle, a Glock 17 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, several large magazines, thousands of rounds of ammunition and a $7,500 ring for his wife that he bought on a jewelry store card. His average spending before that, on his only card, was $1,500 a month.
His web browsing history chronicled his anxiety: “Credit card reports all three bureaus,” “FBI,” and “Why banks stop your purchases.”
He needn’t have worried. None of the banks, credit-card network operators or payment processors alerted law enforcement officials about the purchases he thought were so suspicious.
Mass shootings routinely set off a national debate on guns, usually focused on regulating firearms and on troubled youths. Little attention is paid to the financial industry that has become an instrumental, if unwitting, enabler of carnage.
So, what’s the goal: have banks narc on law-abiding Americans who might use lines of credit for guns and ammunition.
"Otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford" is just a nefarious way of saying "on credit." The point being that anyone who buys a gun on credit should be considered a potential threat and reported to the government. It's a disturbingly authoritarian position. https://t.co/YmxG2j8CPb
— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) December 24, 2018
An amazing amount of effort went into a piece with a truly terrible premise. The NYT seems to want banks to play big brother for gun owners. I'm sure they'd feel the same way if banks tatgeted a group of people they like. https://t.co/Jr6MWd5ilV
— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) December 24, 2018
Buying guns and ammunition on credit, while perhaps financially irresponsible, doesn't mean your banker should report you to the police. It's an absurd suggestion the New York Times would freak out about if made for groups they prefer.
— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) December 24, 2018
Imagine if somebody suggested banks inform ICE when they notice spending behavior they believe is associated with being in the country illegally. How would the New York Times feel about that?
— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) December 24, 2018
Thankfully, thus far, even the most radically anti-gun banks like Citi and Bank of America haven't been brazen enough to act as some sort of secret police and report customers' gun spending to the government.
— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) December 24, 2018
Some in the financial industry no longer want to do business with the gun industry but none of them have decided to harass their gun owning customers writ large. Not yet, at least.
— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) December 24, 2018
One last thing about this piece. It's pure tribalism. The idea of mass financial monitoring of millions of law-abiding Americans is in obvious conflict with the NYT's principles on government surveillance but they're will to ignore that because gun owners are the target. https://t.co/Jr6MWd5ilV
— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) December 24, 2018
Firearms reporter Stephen Gutowski was able to shred this entire piece with a few tweets. The one that stood out, however, was what if banks informed immigration authorities on activity that they felt was being committed by someone who was in this country illegally. Liberals are opening the door to this intrusive abuse of power, but hey—we’re just playing by their rules, right?
“Imagine if somebody suggested banks inform ICE when they notice spending behavior they believe is associated with being in the country illegally. How would the New York Times feel about that?” he tweeted. Gutowski also noted that the piece comes in conflict with the Times’position on government surveillance, but screw it because gun owners will be targeted. You know, those awful, rural, and usually Republican voters who dwell outside of the liberal cesspools of America.
And Gutowski wasn’t the only one who saw the frightening and horrid implications this piece was making:
The no-platforming that's happening in the payments system re: speech is coming after the exercise of other lawful, constitutionally protected freedoms. What @andrewrsorkin is calling for is stunningly illiberal, and even the increasingly squishy @ACLU balks at it.
— Jon Stokes (@jonst0kes) December 24, 2018
He straight up wants to treat gun owners and guy buyers like terrorists. It's right there in the article. He is advocating that the financial system turn its post-9/11 anti-terror infrastructure on lawful gun owners. pic.twitter.com/dNtQXT7OpF
— Jon Stokes (@jonst0kes) December 24, 2018
To be clear, Vegas excepted (it's always the exception), most mass shooters use one or two guns because that's all you need. Are we going to cast the net that wide, where everyone who buys one or two guns gets LEO scrutiny? You may like that idea, but that is a big haystack.
— Jon Stokes (@jonst0kes) December 24, 2018
I know this is not a thing you're supposed to point out, & I don't typically do it b/c 90% of the time it's a red herring, but active shooter incidents are /rare/. We can't burn down what's left of our civil liberties to stop a thing that causes way fewer deaths than bicycles.
— Jon Stokes (@jonst0kes) December 24, 2018
The banks' attempt at moral leadership on guns might be less risible if they weren't laundering for drug cartels (https://t.co/QQKsVCkbfk), stealing from customers (https://t.co/g5zDHHvxTi), & generally flouting the law and getting people killed (https://t.co/gwt5iiFdxE) at scale
— Jon Stokes (@jonst0kes) December 24, 2018
At the same time, it’s confirmation of what we already know: the Left hate us. There is nothing we can do about that. All we can do is defend the Constitution, defeat them at every level of electoral competition, and give Trump another term in office.
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