The goal: Data can be dangerous in the wrong hands, and claiming data says something that it doesn’t can empower deceitful propagandists to spin whatever narrative they wish while claiming empirical support for their arguments. It can allow activist financial institutions to target nonviolent, law-abiding individuals simply because those individuals choose to spend their money at gun stores.
While the sales code itself might not be dangerous, the way gun control advocates want to use it certainly is.
Last month, gun control advocates hailed the creation and adoption of a new sales code targeted at identifying purchases made at U.S. gun stores. The code was promoted as a way to help banks and credit card companies identify and “recognize dangerous firearm purchasing trends,” thus improving public safety. It won’t.
If anything, this new system, which is susceptible to widespread abuse, could have dangerous consequences. Thankfully, Republican members of Congress are taking steps to resist its implementation.
Republican Sens. Bill Hagerty and Tom Cotton announced that they led a group of Senate Republicans in penning a letter to Amalgamated Bank President and CEO Priscilla Sims Brown “criticizing the bank’s manipulation of an international rules organization to force U.S. financial services firms to categorize gun purchases.” This is the latest move in the political back and forth that began when Amalgamated Bank, which self-describes as “America’s socially responsible bank” and donates thousands of dollars to Democrats and left-wing political groups, successfully petitioned for the creation of the new sales code.
Read more
By CODY WISNIEWSKI
