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Firearms Reporter Torches NYT’s Mass Shootings Piece In One Tweet

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  December 24, 2018 7:30 PM

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. 

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.

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And Gutowski wasn’t the only one who saw the frightening and horrid implications this piece was making:

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.