United States – -(AmmoLand.com)- When Letitia James is celebrating, Second Amendment supporters need to check and see if our rights have become more threatened. Earlier this week, one of her celebratory press releases is a warning that financial deplatforming has become that much easier.
Just before the Labor Day weekend, James and California Attorney General Rob Bonta demanded that Visa, Mastercard, and Discover create a specific merchant category code for sales of guns and ammunition. A week later, she celebrated the International Standard Organization’s requirement for the new code.
This shouldn’t be a surprise. While New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen in conjunction with the Heller and Caetano decisions should block any government bans on firearms, it is powerless against private businesses who make ostensibly “business” decisions.
Given her past track record which includes targeting firearms manufacturers, companies that produced 80% receivers, and her election-interfering effort to dissolve the National Rifle Association, this news is presumptively bad news. It has now become easier to single out firearms purchases, and while James and Bonta are only demanding this specific category… how long will they just be demanding only the category?
The probable next step will be to demand separate categories for firearms and ammunition, so as to start telling whether people are buying guns, ammo, or both. Then they will demand to segregate out the modern multi-purpose semi-automatics into yet another category.
Once that is done, it becomes easy to demand they block the purchases. That demand will be backed up with the threat of civil litigation egged on by anti-Second Amendment extremists groups, whether the Brady Campaign, Giffords, or Everytown. The purpose of the litigation will be to drum up bad publicity and force a settlement that will force the companies to cut off purchases.
Then, of course, there is the fact that generating a lit of possible gun owners just got outsourced to the financial industry – where such data can be subpoenaed by a state AG who is channeling Lavrentiy Beria. Think that won’t happen? Do we need to go over the track record of Letitia James again?
The most dangerous part about this is that this decision is going to be much harder to address via grassroots action. The credit card companies are private businesses and have pretty much the same First Amendment rights we do. They can also run their business as they see fit, and in the cases of Visa, Mastercard, and Discover, we don’t exactly have competition we can turn to.
We’re not helpless, though. Those in states that respect the Second Amendment can urge their elected officials to promulgate regulations to mitigate the potential harm that the recent actions of the International Standard Organization. The other step is to work to defeat anti-Second Amendment extremists like Letitia James via the ballot box at the federal, state, and local levels.
About Harold Hutchison
Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.
The credit card companies ARE NOT private businesses, each and every one is a PUBLIC business that has stockholders involved. They are ALL listed on the New York Stock Exchange!! Shareholders need to fight back against these draconian rules!
Oh what will we do w/o credit cards? How will we ever exsist? We won’t be able to buy anything without that little piece of plastic. Before credit cards there was C.O.D. The credit card companies tell you they are important, that’s how they stay in business.
Election do have consequences. Cash is king and when I make purchases over the internet I either send them a check/money order or more often than not do a bank transfer. With the vendors I use on the internet it is rare for me to have to use a credit card which usually cost an additional 3%. If they don’t have the bank transfer option available on their site I just call them and they are more than happy to receive a money order or do a bank transfer, just gotta ask.
Every thing I’ve read so far names Visa, American Express, and Mastercard. Does anyone know for sure if Discover is also in on this?
I have some ‘news’ for you Harold. Financial deplatforming hasn’t gotten a little closer, it was already done almost a decade ago under the O’bomba regime. Remember a thing called: “Operation Choke Point”? Since you appear to have convieniently forgotten it, no biggie. We all know that you ‘journalists’ have no memory of anything before today’s breakfast. It’s been your S.O.P. for decades now. It’s the reason we no longer listen to you, or care about what words you write. It’s the answer to why we are so hard on you, and why you need to stop and look around… Read more »
The Communist Biden Regime is using every tool they can find to disarm the American people. They are using government pressure on private corporations, ordering industry under threat of arrest and shutdown to stop selling, making and shipping arms protected under the Second Amendment, arrest of citizens who own arms legally purchased, and the imprisonment of citizens who bought arms and gun parts legally under the law. It seems the Communist Biden Regime is in great fear of the American people who cherish their liberties and oppose the Communist Tyranny that Biden is using against Americans. Communist Regimes always disarm… Read more »