Category: Anti Civil Rights ideas & “Friends”
By Larry Keane
A New York Times conference featured a bank CEO pushing the financial industry to track Americans making purchases at retailers and monitor their “suspicious activity” under the guise of “reducing gun violence.”
Amalgamated Bank CEO Priscilla Sims Brown was the special guest at the Times’ DealBook confab and was interviewed by Andrew Ross Sorkin. He’s the Times’ columnist who previously proposed the gun buying monitoring scheme and spelled out the “next steps” in a column highlighting Sims Brown’s efforts after an international financial standards board adopted her petition to create the tracking codes.
Putting even a little thought to the idea reveals the serious flaws of the plan. Implementing the enormous system to track the private financial transactions will create a myriad of privacy and civil liberty concerns and no doubt is ripe for abuse.
Gun Control Dragnet
Sims Brown lobbied the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to create a gun-related Merchant Category Code (MCC) for credit and debit card companies to use to track cardholders’ purchases of firearms and ammunition. The ISO adopted the proposal and banks are beginning to use them. Listening to Sims Brown forecast what’s ahead, her true gun control aim is revealed. It’s a dragnet for law-abiding Americans.
“We’re at the very early stages of this –,” Sims Brown told Sorkin and the audience. “But as this is implemented, those scenarios will be used.”
By “those scenarios,” she means “detection scenarios” in which a particular purchase prompts a bank to file a Suspicious Activity Report to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Here’s how the MCC tracking will reportedly work. Purchases made at retailers selling firearms or ammunition would be assigned the new code for purchases. The MCC won’t identify what is in the customer’s basket, so it could be a total purchase for a firearm and several boxes of ammunition. It could also include a new tent, sleeping bag, propane stove, waders, decoys, blinds and other outdoor gear. The total cost could be flagged as “suspicious” since it might be an outlier on a customer’s purchase history. That doesn’t make it nefarious, though.
Media reported the proposal won’t have its intended effect. “The payment network and its banking partners would have no idea if a gun-store customer is purchasing an automatic rifle or safety equipment,” Bloomberg News reported. Banks aren’t saying what purchases would be “suspicious.”
Just a Steppingstone
The MCC scheme has caught the attention of Congressional gun control politicians. Legislation has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, H.R. 5764, by Reps. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) and Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) and in the U.S. Senate, S. 3117, by Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). That legislation, The Gun Violence Prevention Through Financial Intelligence Act, would provide banking institutions the cover they need to track purchases by requiring the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to provide “guidance” needed to institute the MCC.
“Financial institutions have a legal obligation… to have programs in place to help detect and report suspicious activity, but they have to know what they are looking for,” Rep. Wexton said.
Rep. Dean has praised the back door gun control effort, too. “Financial institutions already have proven systems in place to identify suspicious behavior and purchasing patterns,” she wrote in a release.
Still no one has offered what “suspicious behavior” or “purchasing patterns” would be flagged. The questions are endless, answers few and the threat to Constitutional rights high.
Trudging Ahead. Trampling Rights.
Sorkin hypes his work in getting the MCC code established. He told the Dealbook audience, “This is an emotional topic for me in many ways… because back in 2018 I started writing about the role of guns in our society… and the role of credit card companies and banks in financing mass shootings.”
Sorkin stated his belief that lawful firearm retail businesses and the already-highly regulated Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) which provide for the legal exercise of the Second Amendment should do their part to create the backdoor database of gun buyers – something Congress is prohibited by law from doing on their own.
“Merchants must start using the code, and not obfuscate transactions by using other classifications,” Sorkin wrote. “Most crucially, the payments industry needs to develop and refine software algorithms for identifying suspicious activity…”
There are those words again – “suspicious activity.”
The suspicion is better reserved for those who would compile lists of Americans lawfully exercising their Constitutional Second Amendment rights. The right to keep and bear arms begins with the ability to make a purchase at the retail counter. Financial industry power players, though, are twisting their roles to facilitate legal transactions into social credit scores that put Americans on secret watch lists.
The financial industry doesn’t need to be suspicious of gun buyers who already are subject to FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verifications. This move, though, is reason enough for Americans to be suspicious of “woke” banking CEOs doing the bidding of gun control politicians.
Larry Keane is Senior Vice President of Government and Public Affairs and General Counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry trade association.
——————————————————————————– Does anybody remember voting for this guy? I don’t! Grumpy
WASHINGTON, D.C. -(Ammoland.com)-The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Department of Justice have sent the rule surrounding pistol stabilizing devices to the White House for Presidential review.
After the 2020 Presidential election, President Joe Biden called on the ATF to change regulations around pistol braces and unfinished frames and receivers. The ATF drafted a proposed rule dealing with unfinished frames and receivers thirty days later. Then a month later, the ATF unveiled its proposed regulations around firearms with pistol stabilizing devices.
During the open comment period, the Federal Registry received just under 300,000 public comments on the proposed frames and receiver rule. The proposed pistol stabilizing device rule received a little more than 250,000 public comments. The vast majority of the comments opposed the new anti-gun rules. The ATF continued to move forward with the rule-making process despite the general public disdain for the new regulations. This rule was the second time a pistol stabilizing rule was proposed. The December, before the final rule proposal, a public comment period was opened on another attempt at introducing a new rule, but the ATF pulled the rule before the comment period closed.
If the final draft rule is any indication, the new rule will treat the vast majority of firearms with pistol stabilizing devices as short barreled rifles (SBR) or short barreled shotguns (SBS). The statute does not ban pistol stabilizing devices but does regulate the firearm utilizing the brace. Companies that make braces can still make the items, but if the ATF treats the stabilizing devices as stocks, the market for pistol stabilizing devices will be small.
It is believed that the new rule will have an amnesty period for gun owners to register their pistols equipped with a stabilizing brace as an SBR or SBS.
In early September, AmmoLand News discovered an ATF request for increased funding for this proposed amnesty period. There are only rumors of the exact number of days in the amnesty period, but a similar period was introduced after the announcement of the frames and receiver rule. That rule saw a 120-day amnesty period. It is logical to conclude that the new amnesty period will have a similar number of days.
Some think President Biden will schedule a press conference like he did when he held a press conference in the Rose Garden to unveil the final frame rule. When the text of the frames and receiver rule was announced, the President invited anti-gun advocates and politicians, including David Hogg, to the White House for a ceremony. Pro-gun advocates saw this press conference as President Biden “spiking the football.”
The White House has not announced when the new rule will be unleashed on the American gun owner. When the final rule is revealed, a slew of lawsuits challenging the regulation is expected to be filed. The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) has already filed a lawsuit challenging the yet-to-be-unveiled rule, but the case has been stayed until the end of December to give time for the rule to be unveiled.
The White House did not return AmmoLand’s request for comment.
About John Crump
John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.
Disney CEO Bob Iger: Those of Us in Positions to Influence Laws, Shape Culture ‘Have an Extra Responsibility’ to Push Gun Control
3:06
Disney CEO Bob Iger attended a Sandy Hook Promise Benefit and referenced people in influential positions and suggested that those who shape culture “have an extra responsibility” to push gun control.
Sandy Hook Promise is the group with to whom country singer Tim McGraw donated concert proceeds for a gun control fundraiser in July 2015.
On April 16, 2015, Breitbart News pointed to McGraw’s planned participation in the fundraiser and he responded to the coverage by telling MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, “I lead my life leading with my heart, I do the things that I can do and support the causes that I support, try to help in the areas where I can help, and I do that with my heart. If I have a decision to lead with my head or my heart, I’m going to lead with my heart every time.”
The Hollywood Reporter noted that Iger, Barack Obama, and actor Matthew McConaughey all gathered in New York Tuesday, where they honored the work of Sandy Hook Promise and continued the push for more gun control.
Iger said, “As a grandfather, as a father, as CEO of The Walt Disney Company, I believe there is no greater or more important task than ensuring the safety and well-being of our children.”
He added, “Those of us who are in positions to affect change, whether it’s by influencing laws of shaping culture or supporting organizations on the frontlines, I think we have an extra responsibility.”
Obama also made comments, lamenting the failure to pass Second Amendment restrictions wanted by the gun control lobby:
Perhaps the most bitter disappointment of my time in office, the closest I came to being cynical, was the utter failure of Congress to respond in the immediate aftermath of the Sandy Hook shootings. To see almost the entire GOP, but also a decent number of Democrats equivocate and hem and haw and filibuster and ultimately bend yet again to pressure from the gun lobby.
Universal background check legislation was the key proposal pushed under the Obama administration following the attack on Sandy Hook. It failed as an emphasis was placed on the fact that the Sandy Hook attacker used stolen guns, thereby eliminating any benefit of the passage of more point-of-sale gun controls.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, together with 17 other state attorneys general, are asking shipping companies UPS and FedEx to explain their newly implemented policies to track and record Americans’ firearms purchases and disclose whether these policies have been coordinated with the Biden administration.
In letters sent on Nov. 29 to FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam and UPS CEO Carol B. Tomé, Knudsen and his co-signers wrote that the shipping companies’ policies “allow your company to track firearm sales with unprecedented specificity and bypass warrant requirements to share that information with federal agencies.”
“What both of these companies are saying is that they’re doing this so they can better cooperate with law enforcement,” Knudsen told The Epoch Times. “That’s all fine and well, until you find out that that’s a violation of federal law.”
Based on reports from gun stores, Knudsen’s letter states, FedEx and UPS are now requiring federal firearms license holders to provide details of each shipment to the shipping companies, including the contents and recipient, allowing them “to create a database of American gun purchasers and determine exactly what items they purchased.
Citing the new policies, the letter states: “Perhaps most concerning, your policies allegedly allow FedEx [and UPS] to ‘comply with … requests from applicable law enforcement or other governmental authorities’ even when those requests are ‘inconsistent or contrary to any applicable law, rule, regulation, or order.’ In doing so you—perhaps inadvertently—give federal agencies a workaround to federal law, which has long prevented federal agencies from using gun sales to create gun registries.”
“The ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] is hoping they’re not going to have a warrant problem,” Knudsen said. “They could just go get this information from UPS and FedEx.”
FedEx and UPS’s new gun-tracking policies follow efforts by Visa, Mastercard, and American Express to also monitor purchases from gun stores, with the intention of handing that information over to federal law enforcement. The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits the federal government from conducting searches of U.S. citizens without a warrant and “probable cause” that a crime was committed.
Increasingly, however, banks, credit card companies, and now shipping companies are conducting those searches on the government’s behalf.
The letter demands that the shipping companies respond within 30 days, clarifying their policies and explaining whether or not they acted in coordination with the ATF or any other government agency. It also asks them to clarify a reported “gag order” under which they directed gun shops not to disclose the terms of this policy to the public.
Possible Collusion?
The two letters to UPS and FedEx were virtually identical because the policies the companies implemented appear to be strikingly similar, raising the additional issue of possible collusion between companies that hold an oligopolistic position in shipping. Collusion in restraint of trade has long been illegal under U.S. antitrust laws, including the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.
“It’s either collusion, they’re working together, or what I suspect is, it’s probably originating out of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, or the Biden administration,” Knudsen said. His letter recommends that the shipping companies “consider taking actions to limit potential liability moving forward, including the immediate cessation of any existing warrantless information sharing with federal agencies about gun shipments.”
If the shipping companies don’t answer his questions within 30 days, Knudsen said, “I’ll probably start with an actual formal civil investigative demand where we’ll ask for some documentation. That’s short of a subpoena and an actual lawsuit, but, ultimately, if they don’t want to cooperate, a lawsuit is where we’re going to end up.”
In response to the letter, FedEx told The Epoch Times in a statement that “FedEx is aware of the letter from the state attorneys general. We are committed to the lawful and safe movement of regulated items through our network.”
UPS responded that it “has not bypassed any laws to provide customer information to the Biden administration or federal agencies related to the shipment of firearms. UPS will only provide information about our customers or shipments when required to do so by law, such as in response to a subpoena or a warrant.”
UPS “will respond to the letter sent by several state attorneys general to answer their questions and clarify misinformation. UPS will continue to abide by all applicable laws in providing service for firearm shipments,” it stated.
“The policies set forth by FedEx and UPS are troubling, to say the least,” Mark Oliva, public affairs director of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told The Epoch Times. “They carry with them serious risk of privacy concerns for law-abiding gun owners, and Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen is correct to be wary of how this information is to be used.
“We know that pressure was applied to these common carriers by antigun Democratic senators and the result was these new policies. It does seem rather coincidental that the Biden administration and certain elected officials that have been frustrated in instituting extreme gun control measures are suddenly and curiously seeing big businesses doing exactly what they are not allowed to do by law.”
Knudsen was asked why the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which is tasked with protecting consumers against corporate collusion, is taking no action against what appears to be a coordinated effort by the shipping companies to target the firearms industry.
“I think there’s probably pressure from the White House to not do that, which is why you’re seeing AGs in states like Montana that have joined me to push back on this. If the federal government isn’t going to do their job, we’ll step in and make them do it.”
He said that gun shops are being targeted not only by credit card and shipping companies but by insurers as well.
“I’m aware of a number of FFL brick-and-mortar gun shops, and also some retailers that are just middlemen in Montana, that have been denied property-casualty insurance on their business property simply because they’re in the firearms industry.”
Kevin Stocklin is a writer, film producer, and former investment banker. He wrote and produced “We All Fall Down: The American Mortgage Crisis,” a 2008 documentary on the collapse of the U.S. mortgage finance system.
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Gun owners on Oahu are still without a public range as a probe into possible lead contamination at Koko Head Shooting Complex continues ― and new details emerge about what the city knew.
Two months ago, the range closed abruptly after tests showed nearly everyone who worked there had elevated lead levels. Hawaii News Now has learned it’s not the first time range staff were found to have a concerning amount of lead in their blood, and that the city was informed of the issue.
Reports and interviews revealed the Honolulu Department of Parks and Recreation did little to protect its workers or educate them about potential hazards at the shooting range.
‘It wasn’t anything serious’
Former range employee Chris Wong said the concerns about lead at the range date back years.
Wong has been shooting for more than three decades, including competitively.
“I have a love for the sport. I believe it’s a right for everyone to be able to have their firearm,” he said. “And I wanted to be involved in the safety aspect of it.”
It’s what inspired the former Kalihi Valley Neighborhood Board chairman to become a firearms instructor. And in 2013, he started working part-time as a range officer at the Koko Head Shooting Complex.
Two years later, Wong says his boss told him he might want to see a doctor.
“I was notified by a co-worker ― my supervisor at the time ― that his lead levels were elevated. So he suggested I go get checked. And when I checked they were elevated,” Wong said.
He says he was kind of shocked “because I do take precautions.”
Although Wong says he never experienced symptoms, it took one year for his lead levels to get back to normal. Not long after getting those initial test results, Wong got another job with the city.
But before he left, Wong said, “I did notify verbally some of the people in Parks and Recs.”
When asked how the Department of Parks and Recreation responded, “It was almost like, ‘Well, good thing you’re transferring.’ That’s it. It wasn’t anything serious.”
It’s unclear what if anything was done with the information about Wong’s health.
When Hawaii News Now asked the city how many former Koko Head Shooting Complex employees had elevated lead level, a spokesperson responded via email “to the best of our knowledge” there was only “one” prior to 2022.
City waited weeks to confirm lead concerns
It’s an issue the Department of Parks and Recreation wasn’t initially forthcoming about.
In mid-September, officials abruptly closed the complex two weeks ahead of a planned berm renovation project.
A city news release cited a staffing shortage but failed to mention the closure was due to the majority its employees having elevated levels of lead in their blood.
After a month and a half of questioning, parks officials finally admitted nine out of 10 staff who were tested had lead levels above the normal range.
HNN has since learned the city has been aware of lead contamination at the range for at least 20 years.
A 2001 report showed extreme levels of lead pollution at the rifle, pistol, silhouette, trap skeet and SWAT ranges. Of the 20 soil samples taken, 15 tested above state regulatory guidelines.
[Read the 2001 report on lead levels at the shooting range by clicking here.]
To give you an idea how toxic it was, the report showed four of those samples contained about 100 times more lead than what the state considers safe for a residential area.
Eight years later, in a separate memo, the state Department of Health outlined seven recommendations the city could implement to reduce potential lead exposures.
Those measures included posting signs, advising everyone at the facility to wash their hands frequently, and to avoid eating and drinking while at the range.
But of the seven recommendations the state Health Department made, the city Parks Department only fully followed through with two of them. Those include posting warning signs to alert nearby hikers of the active range and providing dust protection to workers tasked with disturbing potentially contaminated soil during clean-ups.
Health officials also advised the city to keep its berms “well-maintained” to reduce the creation of fine lead particles.
Over the past two decades, the city says it’s encapsulated the backstop just once ― back in 2014.
The same year the Parks Department confirms a former range worker was diagnosed with elevated lead levels.
In 2020, the City also conducted a cleanup of the range firing line, utilizing a consultant expert in the field of environmental hazard construction remediation.
Range closed indefinitely
Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi told Hawaii News Now there’s no timeline for reopening the range.
“We’re not going to let people back there unless it’s safe,” he said.
He added:
“I don’t know when it’s going to reopen to be honest with you. There’s a lot that has to go into that because that had been going on for a long time with respect to use of the range and what was compiled there and what has to be cleaned up.”
Wong, the former range officer, said he has no interest in suing the city but chose to speak out because he wants to see the lead issue abated and the public park reopened as soon as possible.
He said it’s not right to permanently close Oahu’s only public range for reasons that could have been prevented.
“To have the range shut down, it’s an infringement of rights,” Wong said.
The city did confirm it has hired necessary the environmental consultants.
“We are awaiting the recommendations from the above-mentioned consultant before proceeding with the berm renovation project,” the city said, in a statement.
“We understand the environmental concerns of the neighboring community, and also recognize the shooting complex’s importance to the local firearms community, as this location is the only public shooting range on Oahu. We appreciate their patience while we work with these advisors to make necessary improvements to ensure the shooting complex can once again operate safely upon its reopening.”
Meanwhile, city officials say all Koko Head Shooting Complex workers have been reassigned to work at other parks.
Health officials say casual range users shouldn’t worry too much about lead exposure if they follow safety guidelines.
Those include:
- Washing your hands and face with soap and water after shooting.
- Changing clothes before you leave the range.
- And washing those items separately from everything else.
It’s also advised not to eat, drink or smoke while shooting.
IN FULL:
DOH Recommendations on Lead at Shooting Range by HNN on Scribd
WAS YOUR PRIVATE INFORMATION LEAKED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE?
IF SO, PAY ATTENTION TO THIS URGENT ALERT AND UPDATE
REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED? On June 28, 2022, it was reported that California gun owners had been put at risk by the Attorney General’s office after a new “dashboard” disclosed the personal data of CCW holders and applicants for the past ten years, as well as those on the Assault Weapons Registry, plus the entire Dealer Record of Sale database and those on the Gun Violence Restraining Order list.
WHAT STEPS WERE IMMEDIATELY TAKEN? Gun Owners of California as well as other Second Amendment groups immediately got to work informing gun owners of this egregious and illegal release of private data, and began to collect information as to what would be the most effective way to hold the DOJ responsible. Research on how to proceed with a class action lawsuit was set in motion and it was ultimately determined that this path would not stand up in court as the damages from the leak would vary between affected individuals.
WHAT IS THE STATUS NOW? An out-of-state Second Amendment group filed a class action lawsuit last summer, but this was recently dropped, which means that there is no legal action currently being pursued against the DOJ for the release of confidential data.
THESE ARE THE NEXT STEPS FOR THOSE WHOSE DATA WAS LEAKED: We know – this is frustrating, but it is important. If you want to protect your right to pursue legal action in the future, it is imperative that you fill out an Administrative Claim Form (link to form below). An Administrative Claim Form puts the state on notice that a claim may be filed.
DOES THIS MEAN I WILL BE OBLIGATED TO PURSUE LEGAL ACTION? NO, it simply preserves your right should you want to pursue it in the future.
WHAT GOC RECOMMENDS: As infuriating as this is, this is the most appropriate legal recourse at this time. We strongly believe every single person whose confidential data was leaked to the internet and beyond should protect their future interests and fill out the form. There is a cost of $25 and there is no binding obligation, but it is important that the State of California hears from all of us. This is a small cost to pay to preserve your rights.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE CLAIM FORM MUST BE FILED BY DECEMBER 27, 2022. It is self-explanatory, is fillable online and includes details where to send it.
For more detailed information and instructions, you can call Gun Owners of California at (916) 984-1400 or click on the following link: https://crpa.org/wp-content/
If you are, however, interested in pursuing an immediate lawsuit against the Department of Justice for this extraordinary violation of privacy, the legal team at Michel and Associates have provided a draft legal complaint HERE.
Remember, the deadline to preserve your right to sue the Department of Justice is December 27, 2022.
Here is the forms for it Grumpy
https://www.documents.dgs.ca.gov/dgs/fmc/dgs/orim006.pdf