The article neglects to mention that cc holders can simply get a cash advance and spend the cash dollars on whatever they wish, such as guns and ammunition.
NYT world view is always that complex problems are simply solved by more intrusive governmental procedures. hohoho, and I believe in Santa Claus too.
3
I'll bet the FBI has a record of everyone who subscribes to a left-of-center magazine or newspaper. Local police departments used to (probably still do) keep "Red Squad" files on any local groups or individuals who were not safely conservative or right-wing. But buying enough guns and ammunition to murder dozens or even hundreds of people... THAT kind of "speech" must be protected (or so the NRA tells us) and its privacy guarded against all legal intrusions.
1
So, with that same line of logic; credit card payments should also be removed from planned parenthood and other legal services and products that are offensive to a large block of the public?
6
Nearly every online scam involves a "merchant" who passed muster with credit card companies.
Their standards need to be raised all around.
A very bad, misguided idea.
6
In a nation where a large percentage of guns and ammunition is hoarded by a small percentage of people, the vast majority of whom are more than a little obsessive, compulsive and right of center, this article is sort of, "yeah? and this surprises us why?"
FOX would warn, this is all part of the War on Christmas. After all don't a lot of credit cards spike around now?
2
Really? So when the Supreme Court outlaws abortions then Visa, Mastercard, etc. should do their best to identify payments to abortionists. After all, the overwhelming number of gun purchases lead to no deaths. Every abortion, however, does.
4
Hello banks in the USA - it's not rocket science on how to shut off credit card purchases of weapons and their accessories. Remove the Credit Card service from all businesses selling weapons etc. - that includes the internet, which without credit cards are out of business period.
1
I have some suggestions for other article titles: "How gun shops sell guns that have been used in deadly shootings." "How arms manufacturers make guns that have been used in shootings." "How guns are legal to buy in the U.S.!" How about: "How a person buys a Glock with a credit card and proceeds to shoot no one." The purpose of this article is to press banks to limit (ban?) the purchase of firearms with credit cards. (The Giffords killing involved one gun; this was included in the article and implies that it is not the amount spent that is in question.) Certainly, a change in bank policy would impact gun sales (in what way would be unclear; infringement increases demand). However, the counter argument presented here speaks volumes, and I appreciate that kind of detail if not the general bias of the article.
6
This piece is interesting but not compelling. The broader discussion is ideas and measures to decrease American gun deaths cannot be done so independently but rather through rigorous study and analysis. Unfortunately, the NRA and it's supporters does not want gun safety measures studied as evidenced by the 1996 Congressional amendment to a spending bill that prevents the CDC from funding any study that “advocates or promotes gun control." We must get past the defeatist mantra of the gun community that no measure will work. Until we come to grips with the reality that any measure that saves one or more lives is worth considering, we will continue to face carnage across our country.
Good review by NYT on the serious subject,'sources for killing spree' on 24, Dec,2018 before the dawn of Christmas to enlighten the Govt. Did the lawmakers in the oldest democracy of the world review the loopholes in the system since its enactment of the constitution as reviewed by NYT in the subject article?
The president,Mr.Trump could take up the subject menace for analysis as he is serious about the fund for the wall.Construction of wall could prevent the illegal immigrant but to prevent the mass killing of innocent citizens in educational institutions and public places within the boundary. Determination
and inner strength are the need of the hour.
Conceited mind will never open the eyes of one's short coming. More money and time spend for policing outside the perimeter wall of America by ignoring the monstrous growth of the mass killing with gun within the perimeter.
I would just as soon checkout the kind relationship the bank has with gun companies, the NRA and pro-gun politics.
If i don’t like what I see I’ll take my banking business elsewhere.
1
Banks are required to report CASH transactions of $10,000 or more.
3
A quick google search tells me there were 23 million NICS Background checks this year. That means at least 23 million firearms purchases in 2018 so far. On a practical level, you are going to suggest that the banks wade through these 23 million purchases by law abiding American citizens (even Americans of means run things through their CCs)? A nice handgun or Modern Sport Rifle and 1,000 rounds of target ammunition will only set you back $600 these days (saturated market). The banks are going to wade through tens of millions of legal purchases. Really folks?
On a policy level, I seem to agree with some of the people quoted in the article. Is it really a good precedent that financial institutions would get to discriminate against and/or erroneously call law enforcement attention to completely legal purchases of goods and services by millions and millions of Americans?
On the matter of principal, is it reasonable to take this kind of action against millions and millions of Americans doing nothing more than enacting parts of their individual and enumerated rights protected by the Constitution? Get real folks. This from the same author who would no doubt cry "voter suppression," at the thought of requiring someone present ID to enact their right to vote. If you want to get rid of the individual rights enumerated under the 2nd, that's fine. But be honest and call for a new Amendment.
7
It is only a "red flag" because you are calling it a red flag.
"It" being spending large sums in short bursts is common to most people with credit cards. Ditto normal gun owners.
How could we possibly parse out those whom are planning to commit murder or suicide when most are simply normal people exercising their rights?
Seems like the wrongest possible way to focus on trying to end mass shootings.
Better ways?
Re-establish Fairness ie Consumer protection and fairness in how our government treats all of us.
ban pistol grip semi automatic rifles.
Ban all semi automatic rifles, single shot only
Universal comprehensive health care for all
Hold white collar and political criminals to account and give real consequences at sentencing.
The real problem is the knock on and intentional effect of the republican attack on America since 1980, malaise and a sense that we are all alone and have to fight our fellow citizens, even those employed by us to help us, for what we need.
5
A source of granular insights into consumer purchases—including firearms and ammunition--might be Google. Alphabet/Google harvests data on people’s online purchases by grabbing data points within individual consumers' Gmail messages. It and other data aggregators collect, analyze, profile then sell or resell data on individual consumer behavior. I was appalled to learn that years of my "private" online purchases had been tracked, recorded and preserved (and no doubt monetized) by Google when I checked the inner workings of my Gmail accounts.
As important, Google and its confederates in the data mining and selling business might have data about online purchases of guns that banks and credit card companies might not share. It’s possible that data aggregators and brokers might agree to report unusual spikes in guns or ammunition purchases by a few individuals if they can retain the unregulated right to collect nearly unlimited data on the rest of us. If data collection is going to continue without regulators imposing limits on that erosion of privacy. then I’m somewhat appeased if law enforcement uses it to identify and prevent potential mass shooters.
Thanks for the important investigation, Mr. Sorkin.
1
It is a good thing that NYT has changed the title of this decent article from the original incendiary statement that credit cards are used to fund mass shootings, although the current title does not go far enough from that hapless suggestion. The authors went overboard with a catchy accusation that awoke the CEOs of Visa and MasterCard, who must have protested vehemently at 3 AM. After presenting the shortcomings of other proposals, the article should have concluded that the only feasible solution to the issue of many mass shooters purchasing their weapons with credit, presumably because they do not have enough cash, is for the government to pass a law banning the sales of guns with credit, which is not unconstitutional and comes with the bonus of making apoplectic some gun nuts. Credit cards or state governments may not do the ethical thing of installing the same prohibition, just as they do for gambling, but kudos to PayPal for not enabling the purchase of guns. Let's not get jejune with worries that the government restricting forms of payment is a slippery slope. If it saves lives, let's do it ! If we were crazy enough to try Prohibition, then nothing else is too crazy to try ! While at it, we might also ban any form of advertising for 1 year, just to see how that goes.
5
Banning all semi-automatic firearms and high-capacity magazines dramatically reduces firearms deaths. Australia is absolute proof of that. Until those two things are banned, we will continue to suffer mass shootings and a firearms death rate higher than any other place on planet Earth.
1
Somebody suspicious buys a lot of guns. You've got a live witness to what happened -- the seller. It makes sense to require him to report the sale. Investigating everybody's credit card records is nuts.
3
Remarkably silly. I suppose banks finance alcoholism, as well. And did you know that wealthy predators like Harvey Weinstein paid the bills for their hotel trysts using credit cards?
Clearly, it would be much better for insure that People Intent on Doing Bad Things to pay for those bad things with cash.
Untraceable cash.
So much better.
7
This kind of data analysis is pretty simplistic, to the point of being almost useless. It looks good after the fact (20/20 hindsight), but there is no attempt at being predictive. What sort of false positive rate would this produce? The fact that the author doesn't even address this question is concerning.
7
Interesting and well-written. Agree something needs to be done to prevent mass shootings and appreciate the idea and in-depth research here. Noticed a gap in the analysis on the practicalities of the idea presented, so identifying this in hopes of a critical and productive conversation around this important topic.
If, a big if (due to unfortunate policy, legal, regulatory hurdles), the banking industry were ever mandated legally to track gun/weapon-related purchases by having retailers adjust and disclose gun-related item category codes to banking systems, there would be a threshold amount that would flag anyone spending over the agreed upon amount, over an agreed-upon period of time, to detect potential mass shooters. The issue is, any potential perpetrator would learn of this newly implemented system (this systematic change doesn't get passed quietly) and a high likelihood that potential perpetrators most likely change their buying behavior (buying less at one time over longer periods) to evade financial tracking protocols set up to detect them. Lowering the threshold to account for this risk, would mean that it would flag people like hunters and would turn into a political, legal and policy storm. I think the tracking of certain items that any ordinary civilian should not be buying is practical, but that still leaves a large amount of other potential weapons and guns to be purchased in a manner that would evade the detection protocols put in place by retailers and banks.
"I think the tracking of certain items that any ordinary civilian should not be buying is practical."
And here I was thinking that I was a citizen of a free nation who was free to make my own decisions about what I can and cannot buy in the open marketplace.
7
Terrific. Let's open up everyone's credit card purchases to scrutiny by law enforcement to further erode the privacy protections of ALL citizens so a few can continue to claim non-existent 2nd Amendment rights that go much further than any true Constitutional scholar could ever justify.
Gun deaths now exceed deaths from car accidents, yet I have to go through a whole lot of paperwork to get a driver's license and a car registration, while gun idiots can walk into a gun show and walk away with an AK-47 and unlimited ammo without anyone even knowing their name. Confirming again that we live in the dumbest country in the world.
8
The gun price in the photo is $1600, the ammunition and taxes were a little more than $200. That seems accurate since well made guns are not cheap. The size of the bill does not tell much without knowing what was purchased. I would imagine that this size of a purchase for guns and ammunition is not unusual. It is not that unusual for people to spend a lot of money when they buy guns.
2
Maybe at least some mass murderers use credit cards to buy lots of guns. But, each year, millions of people run up big credit card debts and hundreds of thousands of people buy multiple guns. And, not all mass murderers do either of those. So, unfortunately, while there's a clinically interesting correlation here, flagging people who use credit cards to buy lots of guns isn't going to be an effective way to stop mass shootings.
4
Over 40,000 people were killed by guns in the US in 2017. I wonder if in 2018 we will surpass the number of US soldiers killed in all the years of the Viet Nam War (58,000 or more)?
2
This may seem unbelievable to most people who think that anyone who uses guns are potential mass murderers but expertise only results from shooting many thousands of rounds of ammunition. It is not like playing some video game. People need to learn how to shoot and must practice to shoot well. Any serious shooter is going to have to buy the equivalent of thousands of rounds of ammunition to become adept with their weapons. Investigating anyone who buys weapons and thousands of rounds at a time is going to come up with huge numbers of false positive results. It should remain one consideration in addition to other reasons for concern to avoid wasting a lot of resources.
4
Great idea. Imagine all those people who are depressed and seek to buy stuff to alleviate their feelings. Imagine all the law enforcement personnel investigating all of those people as likely mass murderers. I think that such spending can be investigated with probable cause. No need to swamp law enforcement with a lot of things to investigate to satisfy citizens who want to prevent all tragedies no matter the resources required.
1
This is a extremely good article that came out after I had given up on the New York Times.
Shocking. Who could have imagined that the means for purchasing groceries, gasoline, utilities, tools, charitable donations, clothes - basically any transaction of modern life - could be used to buy guns? What, now any purchase we citizens make is going to make us subject to some criminal screening process by our corporate overlords? No thank you. Modern marketing with our spending habits is already overly invasive. But giving corporations policing responsibilities? It is Orwellian, even for an Orwellian Age.
Are we to make criminals of people based on their spending habits? From porn, to dietary supplies, to clothing, to church donations, and yes, even to guns, is no-one's business but mine. The idea of identifying a mass killer based on what he bought is not sensible- it is Authoritarian.
I am a liberal and I bought my gun with a credit card- It's how things are bought these days. The New York Times ought to be embarrassed for publishing this pitiful excuse for 'journalism.'
10
This is the most ridiculous idea one can conjure up. The statistics are weak. How many people bought guns with credit cards and didn't use them in mass shootings ? So the bank and credit card companies can take care of this problem ? What else can they do ? So I guess the banks could also regulate the media, and other functions in our lives. Why not make them responsible for elections ? I've watched this idiotic rant on CNBC for quite a few months. This is so stupid it's humorous. Instead of the banks maybe we can trust Facebook to help in this epic struggle. After all they merely try to match buyers and sellers in an open and fair marketplace.
4
They probably read articles in the NYT on mass shootings, too. Time to nationalize it as liquidated damages.
3
Time to update Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four and Animal Farm. Time to fold in government monitoring systems, intelligence agency capabilities, Facebook, Google, Twitter and all the other social media platforms. Your voting habits are already tracked. Eventually a regime will be in place to use all these assets well beyond their intrusion now. You will most likely be protected from mass shootings... and you will be protected from a lot of other things that someone else believes is not good for society... or the regime.
7
The ongoing focus on mass shootings is not helpful. You push intrusive surveillance to address 200+ gun deaths in the past 11 years. The problem is the other 300,000+ gun deaths in our country over that period. Mass killings are simply distractions from the real problem.
4
I was on a cross country flight yesterday. In the row in front of me, some one bought a couple of drinks, and soon after want to buy a couple more. The flight attendant said quite simply "this is too soon". There is no reason a credit card company couldn't similarly have a "too soon" flag for gun purchases.
3
Who is to say when it is 'too soon?' Do you really want to give your credit card company to throttle any purchase you make because they think it inappropriate? It does not take a leap of imagination to see the potential for abuse here. The level of authoritarianism in that suggestion is genuinely disturbing.
12
This argument needs to come to a close. Through decades of bitter dispute nothing has ever been done. Nothing will ever be done either. Gun shops are more plentiful than McDonald's. We have enough guns in this country to hand one out to each citizen and there would still be leftovers. We license drivers but not shooters.
Any infringement will be seen as unconstitutional. Innocent people (children, parishoners, concert attendees and anyone on a dance-floor) will continue to be slaughtered and each time the NRA will declare that "now is not the time to discuss gun violence." Silencers will soon come on the market. Maybe we'll even soon see armed drones available in your local sporting goods store. This scenario will never change.
That is the exorbitant price we pay for being sitting duck citizens in America.
1
All good until the close... I’m going to guess that you are looking to provoke thiught? My hope is that we can evolve our thinking... our core psyche is still primal but our knowledge base has evolved exponentially.
I love and have served... Army 89-92... our amazing country but I first love people. A friendly and passionate society decreases the number of people who feel that they need to protect themselves from their neighbor. My life experience is that the mass majority of people are good... yes I’m an idealist.
Happy Holiday!
Be Great and Help Others be Great.
"Gun shops are more plentiful than McDonalds.,
Well, that is because Americans WANT guns more than Hamburgers. So in other words, if you don't want a gun then go grab a Big Mac and leave the rest of us alone to make our choice.
So you are saying that you want an un-regulated private entity to develop a criminal intelligence database in support of law enforcement? How would this work? Are you supposing that Machine learning or AI systems are going to review all gun purchases, all purchases related to firearms, body armor, or other tactical gear to create profiles of individuals who haven't committed any crime? Isn't this exactly what 28 CFR Part 23 was intended to prevent among government agencies?
This is exactly the type of backlash decision making that came after 9/11, when suddenly everyone was discussing whether we needed a domestic spy agency. Suddenly we were developing databases of U.S. citizens without any real regulatory oversight (See PRISM).
Meanwhile, the justification and argument in favor of it is terribly weak. You mention 13 shootings in 10 years. 8 of which used credit cards. We are proposing a giant private surveillance program that would examine millions of purchases every year from millions of people across the country to identify less than 1 individual per year who will conduct a mass casualty event using weapons purchased with a credit card? That seems like alot of work for something that would detect such a minor event.. I wonder what all else would end up in this system to justify its existence. I wonder what the law will be called that eventually regulates the inevitable mission creep.
5
Quick edit, "minor event" is unclear in meaning I am not arguing such events are minor. I should have argued that this seems like a lot of work and infrastructure for a system which would detect such "infrequent events".
Unregulated production and distribution/sales of firearms with their front man, nra thrive on their ocean of blood money. When something is putting your kids through school and paying that second mortgage you don't want to look at it too critically. Our Supreme Court redefined corporations as "individual people" and perhaps they are- giant cyclops that casually step on us as they lurch for ever more money/power. Large financial corporations would do us all good if they could restrict $ the mass murderers use to kill us. I'm not holding my breath.
1
Purchasing firearms and/or ammunition with your very own money is not a crime.
10
Bank technology involved to process purchases detect such purchase patterns is the easy part. What is difficult is the myriad of legal, legislative, political and business issues to get this right.
Given the current NRA influence in American politics, I would be surprised that necessary law changes ever get to the vote in Congress.
1
We have done every thing possible to make it difficult for ourselves as a country to deal with mass shootings.There is nothing wrong with using our intelligence and ability to evaluate phenomenon to guard against the possibility of a disastrous event. We do it all the time with a wide variety of things, but the gun industry has lobbied to prevent the collection and use of data in respect to all the important aspects about guns and their owners.
Americans have a fetish about privacy that is actually self destructive. Why do we do that? One would think that honest people who own guns wouldn't have a problem with full disclosure, but, apparently, they heel to the crazies on the issue. When you take a look at all the things we knew about some of these killers, prior to them actually killing anyone, it makes you wonder if some people are doing their job.
We have automobile registration and driver licenses. You don't need a license to own a gun. Why? Well because some people own a lot of guns, and they don't want to pay for a registration for each of them. I say, nay, nay to that, as would any rational person. The dissenters are in for a rude awakening, when the power structure of our country changes.
The number of deaths per day by each, gun shot and auto accident, are eerily similar, about 100 a day, and we are not counting the injured, or the pain inflicted on families that suffer these kind of losses. Shame on us.
6
You don't need a license for a gun just like you don't need a license to give voice to your political opinions. It's an enumerated individual right. Licensing is analogous to, you know, a poll tax.
1
Just a continuation of what was published back in Feb of this year
"What if the finance industry — credit card companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express; credit card processors like First Data; and banks like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo — were to effectively set new rules for the sales of guns in America?
Collectively, they have more leverage over the gun industry than any lawmaker. And it wouldn’t be hard for them to take a stand."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/19/business/banks-gun-sales.html
what surprises me is that criminals don't use credit cards to buy guns on the street they use cash. what you're proposing will adversely affect the millions of law abiding citizens and will have no affect whatsoever on "mass shooting" or criminal behaviour
I wonder how many mass shooters used a motor vehicle to get to the scene of the shooting? Perhaps venue to search out for causation other than the actual PERSON doing the shooting. Hmm, given the logic behind this article banks unwittingly finance the opioid crisis, too. Next up . . .
5
Wow!...such a remarkable piece of reporting. Shooters, like millions of other people, use credit cards for purchases! So was the Federal Reserve to blame for Kennedy's assassination, because Oswald used Federal Reserve Notes to buy bullets? And who can we implicate in Lincoln's murder, since Booth had to have purchased ammunition at some point? Did every shooter, also utilize the internet or a toilet? How many of them visited a convenience store or fast food provider sometime before their crime?
8
Don't forget to blame the oil companies for providing the means to make plastic. Oh, and the real culprit, the dinosaurs, for dying and becoming the oil that makes the plastic that makes the credit cards that the banks provide. It's a vicious, vicious circle.
You seriously came up with this as a story? Are you running out of things to write?
7
Please, my bank sends me enough alerts as it is. And it's all so random. Hey! Did you buy this gas? Hey did you order this online? It looks suspicious! Text us Yes if it really was you buying that 5lb. bag of gummi bears!
Why don't the Gov put everyone into the GULAG - no mass shootings, credit card debts, opioid crisis, greed, envy, and illegal immigration.
4
Thank you Mr. Sorkin:
Most of these guns/weapons/amo/protection gear were purchased in pro gun ownership States Colorado, Florida, and Nevada.
Credit for weapons purchases? That's just one problem.
The maximum amount of credit available to place on a new vehicle purchase is $4000.00 at most car dealerships. They loathe it because the customer may return the car prior to the payment of that debt.
Also, I worked on a legal project involving many Federal Agencies towards the criminal conviction of a US but internationally connected gun dealer. ICE got their men - which is why I truly respect ICE. If arms sales to foreign countries is a very strictly regulated activity, then how can an individual in the US amass many weapons? ICE does track international involvement.
In California, in order to obtain a medical discount on medical cannabis or its biproducts - CBD, one has to "register" with the County where the patient resides. How's that for consumer and medical privacy? The patient has a bonafide note from their primary care physician that states he/she prescribes the CBD for their patient. To the best of my knowledge, that registration as a medical cannabis patient is PUBLIC!
So, why are gun owners who are clearly, in my point of view, getting high off their weaponry, and capable of harming others and themselves, NOT required to register with a County, the quantity, type, and the nature of their weapons?
5
Electricity is a lawful service but power companies have reported unusually high usage in houses which has led to the discovery of indoor pot farms. The average gardener does not need that many Grow-lights. Banks already are alert to clues for money laundering so why should they balk at looking for very large weapon sales for which they are not likely to get paid?
12
High levels of electricity indicates a hazardous condition, not always associated with the production of cannabis.
1
Growing pot in many places is still a serious criminal enterprise. Buying a lot of guns is not, and the vast, overwhelming majority, in almost every single case, buying a few thousand dollars worth of firearms is not part of an illegal activity.
There are plenty of ways to buy guns. Using the cash advance that credit cards offer would make the purchases untraceable for using a card. Some casinos allow you to buy chips with a card. Just cash them in.
The background check for all gun purchases makes the most sense. Of course using fake id's or some underground seller will always slip through.
This is a problem that will not be solved as long as we continue to have more guns than people.
2
One reason for banks to get more involved is that I am sure they will never see the money perpetrators borrowed to spend on the firearms and ammunition. But this probably is a very small percentage of the total bad debt.
More interesting is the example of lottery tickets. These are regulated by individual States, so maybe States should take a lead here?
Eight instances of mass killers using credit cards for weapons purchases in the past 12 years. Unreported is the millions of weapons purchases in the past 12 years by individuals who have diligently followed the law before, during and after their purchases. Wouldn’t government time and resources be better spent on the ‘missed’ mental health and school discipline signals most of these mass killers exhibited?
13
All those millions of purchases could easily have been screened, with the most extreme of them called into question. If they had, who knows - maybe some innocents would still be alive today. And what would we lose in return? An erroneous reading of our constitution, offended? Please. Mental health screening and school discipline are already vastly more in place than is reasonable gun legislation because there aren't armies of lobbyists and paid-off politicians fighting them. If your government resources were suddenly diverted to even more screening in the schools you'd be screaming about big brother over-monitoring your kids.
Any constitutional right requires that it results in a safer populace. I don't have to tell you to look at the numbers for firearm deaths in our country, murder, suicide, accidental.
2
Define easily screened. This is not an easy screening, this requires the development of some serious algorithms to identify multiple types of purchases (ammo, firearms, paper targets, gas masks) at different days of purchase across multiple credit cards over 2 months. Meanwhile, it also requires increased information sharing across credit card companies, retail stores, and common encoding of values across information streams. Meanwhile, the algorithm is designed to detect 10 individuals who made between 0 and 100 purchases out of millions. The false warning indicators will be insane. Who then has the poor job of tracking down the false leads? Do those false leads make it back to the algorithm to improve its accuracy? Who pays for all of the training and back and forth between developers? If there were a larger target sample it would be easier, but these are incredibly rare events with a wide variety of pre-cursors which must be considered. Developing an algorithm which can detect predictors of such events occurring would be challenging even if the encoding issues were resolved as it is a low-frequency event with varying indicators leading up to each event. The vast majority of these indicators are often mirrored across other purchase events of similar nature which did not result in a mass casualty event.
4
A quick Google search tells me there were 23 million NICS background checks in 2018 alone. That's 23 million firearm purchases so far just in this year. You say "millions of weapons purchases over the past 12 years," but if anything that's an understatement. It's hundreds of millions. There is no way financial companies could shift through and flag that much data (leaving aside the more urgent question of if they *should*).
1
Firearms purchases from licensed sellers - or other private parties - aren't "illegal behavior" that even should be included with "other illegal behavior". I understand you wish to make it so, but that requires following Article 5 of the Constitution just to start.
But I suppose it's too hard to work a de jure prohibition on firearms; so creating a de facto regime is the next best thing.
4
I respect Mr. Sorkin and admire his writing and books, but this piece is suggesting a methodologically flawed approach to preventing massacres. I am not contesting the fact that many mass shooters have gone on gun purchasing binges prior to committing their atrocities. Nor am I arguing that the government should not impose any reporting requirements on banks and credit card companies.
But I am questioning whether a reporting scheme would have any efficacy, since many gun enthusiasts spend a lot of money on guns. Studies of gun ownership show that people who own many guns are predominantly affluent, older, white men: doctors, businessmen, lawyers and other professionals who have money and like to spend it on expensive guns. Any algorithm that reports gun purchases over a dollar threshold is going to pick up a haystack with the needle.
It is possible to develop more sophisticated algorithms that could do a better job at flagging potential shooters, but these algorithms would have to sift through other kinds of data (e.g. age and wealth of buyers) in addition to gun purchase data. But even then they would not pick up someone like the Las Vegas shooter.
Statistically, my argument is similar to the one made by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in "Fooled by Randomness" when he took down the book "The Millionaire Next Door." The premise is a product of survivor bias, and "the authors made no attempt to correct their statistics with the fact that they saw only the winners."
2
Untrue. This is great reportage.
2
Perhaps the seemingly waning power of the NRA will allow us to gain some control over information about who is buying weapons. In places with low gun violence, you can't simply walk into a store and buy a gun. It shouldn't happen here either.
1
Credit card companies already make value judgements about the kinds of businesses they will work with.
5
Yes. No additional government regulations should be needed. A bank should not be granting credit (i.e. allowing charges) for weapons that are likely to be used in a mass shooting, as the shooter usually ends up dead, leaving the bank with a credit write-off. Logically, in the free market, banks should take care of this issue in similar ways to how they deal with fraudulent transactions and money laundering in small layered deposits.
Earlier this year I bought a long range rifle with an M40 tactical stock, and a Glock 19 with three 10 round magazines. I bought the rifle as a welcome home gift for a relative serving in Afghanistan to hunt with in Wyoming, and the Glock to replace a revolver I keep in a pistol safe in my bedroom. Should I have been investigated? Should I be socially isolated?
13
valid point
The article says " Banks and credit-card networks say it is not their responsibility create systems to track gun purchases that would allow them to report suspicious patterns" and then quotes statements by spokespersons for both VISA and MC to the same effect. Clearly, they do not want to take this kind of profile into account in their credit analyses. However, in their own interest, the credit card companies should be looking for just this type of purchasing pattern. As we have seen, most mass shooters either die or are incarcerated as a result of their actions. Where the shooter had relied on credit card financing for weapons purchases, his actions would leave the bank holding the bag on the debt he/she incurred. So banks should look for this kind of behavior in their own best interest, in the same way that they try to detect fraudulent use of credit cards, regardless of what the government may require.
5
Banks and credit card companies say they aren't responsible for "developing systems" to track weapons purchases, but if I spend 5 minutes looking for a $25 blender online my browser is packed with blender ads for months, if not years.
Obviously the tech exists to track any and all moves we make online and at retail. This seems like a good method to prevent at least some of the insanity we're all being subjected to. But let's see...who would object to our gun/ammo-buying habits to be put under any kind of reasonable scrutiny?
10
This is a country that, in open sight, peddles nicotine addition to teens by JUUL and others. For this, JUUL just received $18 billion in new funding. Gun makers and ant others making a buck at our expense are hardly different.
5
While I get the desires of the authors to take some step, seemingly any step, to reduce gun violence, we do not need yet another power granted to the emerging police state. How much more can we expect to have to tell the government? Why not snoop into other areas too? Maybe if you open a tab at a bar, maybe the police should be alerted lest you be a possible DUI? Book a one way ticket out of the country? Maybe you're planning on fleeing a crime so let's alerts the authorities? Bought some first aid medical supplies at Duane Reade? Hmm, maybe NYPD should be told about it as you might have been hurt in the commission of a crime? How about the local cable company reporting that you watched too many shows in the history of the Third Reich? Maybe you're a neo-Nazi planning some racist attack?
We have enough big brother as it is. Enough already.
34
George.
Take a good look at your credit card transactions. Have you noticed an asterisk
" * " in any of the line items?
Companies that want to hide their charges from being tracked place an asterisk along side their main name or somewhere in the line item order information, to prevent being searched upon in a database, after transferring or "exporting" the data from the online database where you can view your transactions. The asterisk is a wild card that won't work with many banking systems' online databases.
I completely disagree with you. Federal agencies DO track weapons in the US, already. The States must do the same job as the Federal Agencies.
In my opinion, an individual should be certified by his or her doctor to purchase a gun, and the individual should have to register with the County where they reside, publicly, and reveal the exact number of weapons they have in possession, in ORDER to purchase any weapon ( machete, gun, bow and arrow sets).
1
Given your slippery-slope deflection, you sound like someone who's never suffered any loss at the hands of a gun user. Lucky you.
Respectfully: life isn't what it was 100 years ago. You're going to have to make some adjustments.
2
Giving up rights is not the sort of adjustment I care to make.
8
Perhaps having banks refuse to associate with gun manufacturers is the start of something bigger. Social isolation should be the bigger picture. Property owners should refuse to lease space to retailers who sell guns. Couriers (Fed Ex, UPS) could refuse to transport their products. Steel manufacturers could refuse to supply raw materials. Eventually if enough businesses within the infrastructure of the gun industry refused to be associated with guns, the industry itself would have to fold.
2
My UPS guy thought it was funny when we were buying ammo online. He wanted to know if we were buying lead. Well, now that u mention it, we were. We both shoot, a lot, and online ammo is much cheaper. Used our Amex, so got Delta miles. I’m also an NRA member and a healthcare provider.
Expecting CC companies to not process orders, for which they make their share-holders happy, will never happen.
What about GMC, Ford, any other auto payment co, should they have to jump thru hoops before they sell to you? More people are killed everyday by automobiles and sleepy truckers, than guns.
Of course I hate the carnage, but I’m not the cause. I drive a high powered Porsche, should I lose that ability bc I could kill a lot of people if I was stupid enough to drink and drive, or race on the street? BTW, I’m a 63 yr old white lady. Don’t take my guns or my cars, and we’ll get along just fine.
Almost everything is bought on credit cards these days. Not sure a cash requirement would be a deterrent, more likely one more instance of inconvenience to remind legit gun purchasers not to vote Democratic.
1
Good luck with the NRA.
I get it. Easy credit means easy access to guns and ammunition. But that's a bit like blaming the rising levels of obesity in America on fertile soil.
7
Just curious about what would come next: a list of people buying anti-semetic books, woman try to charge an abortion? Why don't you just get George Orwell to write the regulations.
15
Wow! An awful stain on Credit card companies, asleep at the wheel, while 'killers in the making' (psychiatric cases...or not) could purchse guns at will and 'pronto', by spending maliciously even when short on cash. What is being done to prevent, or at least minimize, this mayhem?
"Others made a slippery-slope argument"
You should include the words "a logical fallacy" after that.
The de facto unlimited right to nuy, own and possess guns carries with it an implicit right to commit mass murder.
5
No it doesn't. The people who commit mass murder, if they survive are generally arrested, charged, tried and convicted. None of them have successfully involed any "implicit right to commit mass murder".
Banks don't report all transactions over $10,000, nor do they report transactions over $5,000. They only report CASH transactions. The reason this is done is to prevent money laundering by reporting cash transactions which would otherwise not present an audit trail. Suspicious activity reports are only filed if the bank has reason to suspect that the transaction is part of a layering scheme: many small deposits intended to fly under the $10,000 limit. This is hardly a model for invasive inspection of customer purchase receipts. I'm not aware of any bank that routine reviews individual purchases. It would be quite an invasive process. As a non-governmental privacy intrusion, it can be used to circumvent due process, and should be considered a slippery slope.
13
I don't understand what the point of this article is. You can finance mass shootings with some fraud involving student loans as well. Credit cards are just faster. All this article seems to suggest is that we add needless hoops just because. If my son borrows money for an apartment, but uses it for a gun to commit mass murder, am I somehow financing it? No, of course not. Why would credit card companies be any different?
1
Although you may not know when your son borrows money from you for an apartment and buys guns with that money, credit cards and merchants know when your son buys a gun, and that may prevent your son becoming a mass murderer. Do you get it now ?
3
Andrew Ross Sorkin, who has become a sort of enterprise onto himself, but who has also been a a dogged and inventive journalist since high school (when he interned for the NY Times), has done a great service here. With one impressive act of reportorial creativity he has uncovered what may be a latent opportunity for gun law advocates, one that could sidestep the lavishly funded and obstructionist alliance of gun manufacturers, dealers, advocacy groups, and legislators scared for their political lives. As the article and other commenters make clear, it won't be easy sailing. In fact, some of the pushback he received from banks and gun advocates show just how live a nerve he has touched. Much work remains to be done, and this report feels like only a first step. But it does provide a platform to build on what Sorkin has done, which is to look under a rock that has yet to be turned over, document fact, assemble it into comprehensive narrative, quote the powerful, and put it into the public sphere. Gun control has always been about the regulation of a market: who can buy guns and where. Will the NRA be able to pierce the financial regulatory apparatus. Will banks want to be seen as funders of massacres? Will law enforcement pursue this as a valuable tool? Stay tuned. And keep at it Mr. Sorkin.
17
This is provides a great and legal way to protect the American people from the murderous rampages of a few. All purchases create data that is tracked, stored and anlyzed, the credit card companies sell it on a regular basis. If you take your car for repair you will get lots of offers for new cards. Amazon and others have algorithms to predict behaviour based on purchases and browsing. It would be very very easy to develop a model to predict murderous behaviour, just as is done for AlQueda operatives or foreign spies. It's true that cash purchases at gun shows won't be tracked but these people often can't get their hands on that much cash.
13
"It would be very very easy to develop a model to predict murderous behaviour, just as is done for AlQueda operatives or foreign spies."
OK. And then what. The FBI or ATF kicks down your door at 3 AM in the morning and charges you with ...legally buying guns?
3
Unless there is a FEDERAL requirement that banks somehow flag the kinds of purchases described in this article those who want to make these purchases will be able to do so by doing some quick internet research to determine which states permit anyone to purchase any gun at any time and they will proceed to load their virtual cart with on-line guns and ammo... and I despair of the possibility of ANY action happening any time soon at the federal level...
1
The States have jurisdiction over a gun sale, not the Federal agencies which regulate mass gun collections and sales.
I'm not sure I follow the logic of this article. For those who have the resources, use of a credit card is nothing more than a convenience. If credit card purchases were somehow restricted, wouldn't these purchases simply be converted to cash, perhaps at venues like gun shows where there are fewer checks and safeguards? Or driven even further underground, where there are none?
8
If you're planning a massacre by shooting, and you expect or even want to die during this event, you don't care about running up a credit card debt you could never afford because you'll never have to pay the bill. It's very easy to amass a collection of various credit cards that individually may not have much associated credit, but collectively can buy an arsenal.
9
You can do that with any kind loan. I could take out a student loan and do the same thing. If you are planning a mass shooting, then who cares if you commit fraud? There isn't a restriction that will prevent that.
1
You err when stating that there are no protections or surveillance of underground or black market sales of weapons.