When American Banker gets involved in a conversation regarding banks and their roles in commerce and society, bankers -and financial types- listen. For those of us who don’t have active roles covering that beat, it’s easy to presume that all bankers are lining up in what will be another attempt to regulate the financial aspects of “the gun question.”
Here are some of the responses AB is getting to the suggestion that credit card companies should monitor - and report (of course)- suspicious activity by cardholders. “Suspicious activity” in this instance means buying anything to do with guns and ammunition. And buying it legally.
One reader mentioned a point that’s apparently ignored in the latest campaign to disenfranchise the gun industry and gun owners: no matter what your position on guns, there is nothing illegal about buying them.
“While the idea that gun purchase sku level data is available is hopeful - sku level data for cards is pretty messy if it exists at all. What is with the idea that BANKS should police LEGAL behavior? As abhorrent as it may seem, stockpiling a bunch of weapons is legal in this country. What other LEGAL behaviors should we have banks policing? If you want this be ILLEGAL, then lobby against assault weapons. You don't want bank risk departments legislating. PERIOD."
The reader’s correct - once you begin policing activities you judge to be “abhorrent” where do you draw the line? Banks aren’t part of our legal system, they’re businesses.
Here’s an operational insight that points out another problem in the arguemnt. Mistakes aren’t likely, they’re inevitable:
“Missing is a discussion of what the rate of false positives is likely to be. It is likely to be high, which would not only potentially chill legal activity by law-abiding cardholders but would harm law enforcement by giving them more bad info (on top of the vast majority of SARs that don’t amount to anything), while creating a trove of super-sensitive data that would be very harmful to consumers if a breach were to occur.”
The cause of all this discussion is a column by New York Times financial columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin. In his piece, Sorkin asserts that “many of the killers” (he’s talking about mass shooters) built their “stockpiles of high-powered weapons with the convenience of credit cards.” He went on to try and make the point that it’s a bank’s “duty” to police those purhases.
American Banker carried that argument further, saying that it’s a call to banks “akin to Homeland Security’s summons to patriotic duty: ‘if you see something, say something.’”
Fortunately, their readers aren’t quite as ensconced in the ivory towers as the business writers.
The reality of life, whether these otherwise intelligent reporters realize it or not, is that credit cards are used for all sorts of things that they might not “like”, from cigarettes and lottery tickets to bad haircuts and offensive t-shirts. Some are definitely harmful to your health; others offensive to neighbors, but all of them are - legal.
Seems it’s ok -even in financial journalism - to blur the line between legal and unpopular when you’re virtue signaling.
Banks are frequently pilloried for everything from predatory lending practices to using redlining in realty financing. Frequently, that criticism comes from many of the same people who now using the same “social justice” arguments they often lampoon as “simplistic” or “unrealistic.”
This time, they say, it’s “different” - because the reporting could be used against something they don’t like.
It’s “virtue signaling” at its worst, but advocating masquerading as reporting seems to be the fastest track to the “cool kid circle”.
Meanwhile, the political battle over funding a border wall that has shut down many government services continues.
I’s the most glaring example of an ideological rift that divides Congress. Rather than behaving like legislators - they treat governance like sports. If you can’t get a “W” - just make it as difficult for the other side as possible. And why wouldn’t they? They’ve exempted themselves from virtually every rule that inconveniences “the rest of us.”
Republicans say the country needs the wall. Democrats say no one wants it. So they fiddle as Rome burns.
Yesterday, Gary Ramey of Honor Defense reached out to clue me in to the fact that, despite what you may have heard, many in law enforcement support the border wall.
Not the political appointees - the rank-and-file law enforcement officers who see the impacts of illegal immigration on a daily basis.
Honor Defense is joining with Law Enforcement Today to work toward raising money to build that wall. They’re joining to raise money for the GoFundMe campaign that’s already raised more than $20 million toward a $1 billion goal -to help pay to build a border wall.
Honor Defense and Law Enforcement Today will be auctioning this special edition Honor Defense pistol to help raise funds to build a border wall. The auction runs next week during SHOT Show and bidding starts at $10,000. Image courtesy of Honor Defense.
Honor Defense has contributed a special edition pistol with a serial number they’ve been holding onto for “just such a special occasion” as Ramey explained. The serial number: #000911.
Their “Build the Wall” pistol was specially engraved by Josh Peeks of American Engraver, and has “Secure Our Borders” on one side, with an American flag on the other. The slide top says “The Wall” and features barbed wire tipped with the stars from the American flag. The muzzle says “Making America Great Again.”
You can see more of the pistol shots at: www.lawenforcementtoday.com/screw-politics-build-wall (another title that pretty much sums up their position on Congress).
At this point, there’s no assurance that the GoFundMe campaign will reach its goal. If it doesn’t and the money’s returned to donors, Ramey says the money raised from the auction will be donated to a 501(c)3 charity that supports the families of officers killed in the line of duty.
We’ll all be there at SHOT Show next week, and we’ll keep you posted.
—Jim Shepherd
