As a follow-up to my September 12 MRCTV piece on the behavior-monitoring, police-reporting, rights-crushing potential of credit card corporations VISA, Am-Ex, and MasterCard adopting the new International Organization for Standardization (IOS) “gun store code,” on September 22, I reported that 24 state Attorneys General warned the CEOs of those corporate giants against the code adoption, fearing that it might be used to attack the right to privacy and the right to keep and bear arms.
In my initial piece, I mentioned that collectivist New York City Comptroller Brad Lander seemed very eager to see government doing precisely those things. He was so eager, in fact, that he pushed hard for the credit card corporations to adopt the gun shop purchase codes and used his influence over nearly a billion Dollars in public employee pension funds to threaten divestiture from the corporations, which had been blessed with sizeable investments by those funds.
In public statements, Lander implied that this data-tagging -- though currently not specific to gun purchases, but generally, to gun shop purchases – would be a key first step to government monitoring of gun buys (of course, the feds already require the "universal criminal background check" to be conducted, completely contrary to the Second Amendment, and various states immorally and unconstitutionally block gun sales and impose delays on receipt of purchased guns).
Now, it looks like at least some of the big banking interests are just as eager as Lander to proceed with this anti-rights, dystopian agenda.
Jenny Surane reports for Bloomberg, via Daily Business Review:
“Banks are developing technology to identify potential mass shooters, according to a CEO backing the push to get credit-card companies to more closely track gun purchases.
‘Detection scenarios’ are in the works that, if triggered, would prompt banks to file a Suspicious Activity Report to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Amalgamated Bank Chief Executive Officer Priscilla Sims Brown said at the New York Times DealBook conference Wednesday.”
Logical extrapolation lends itself to wonder how BANKS could “develop technology to identify potential mass shooters,” without finding out what legal, white market, gun purchases people are making. It also inspires one to ask how the banks determine what’s “potential mass shooter” buying behavior.
Do they mean, say, the government of Ukraine buying a bunch of weapons from Western nations and/or their corporate weapons-making friends, using US taxpayer cash to do it? Would that constitute a problem, or is it just private individuals they’re discussing?
I think we know the answer to that sarcastic question.
And what are those “detection scenarios” -- what they are “detecting” that would be “suspicious”? As I have mentioned for MRCTV, should people who believe in freedom be suspicious of politicians who demand that all supposedly “free” people get “licenses” (i.e. permission slips) from the government to engage in peaceful market transactions, especially when those people have an absolute right to keep and bear arms?
What’s really the suspicious part of this slow-moving theatrical set-piece? Amalgamated’s charming Ms. Brown offered more delightful thoughts that give us a hint:
“’We’re at the very early stages of this. This particular code just got approved in October, so those detection scenarios are still being brought together,’ Brown said. ‘But as this is implemented, those scenarios will be used.’”
Oh, yes. It is precisely what we said it was, back in September. The only problem is that Ms. Brown didn’t have her months right.
Oh, and then there’s the whole, “invasion of private contract, reporting to the agents of the state” thing…
And, curiously, now we know that Ms. Brown really SHOULD know the dates a bit better. Surane explains that her bank was another of the pressuring parties that was integral in getting the ISO to create the “gun shop code.”
“The International Organization for Standardization approved a new merchant category code earlier this year that banks will use when processing transactions for gun and ammunition stores after Amalgamated submitted an application on the matter. Gun-control advocates were quick to celebrate the move, arguing it would help banks flag suspicious activity at these retailers.”
But, of course, as we’ve already noted, anti-gun figures such as the heroic Mr. Lander already have revealed themselves as being part of the force pushing for this first step towards reporting of gun buys, ammo buys, even purchases of time at the range of a gun shop.
And if one looks up Amalgamated Bank, one discovers to his utter shock that the bank is tied to so many leftist interest groups and political figures the connections could fill a book. We’re talking ESG “ Environmental Sustainability” ties to the leftist climate fearmonger SolutionsProject.org, political connections to “progressive” powerhouses such as “Biden-Harris” and “Warren Democrats,” and unions such as the Teamsters and the Michigan Education Association. In fact, Amalgamated Bank was started in 1923 by…the Amalgamated Clothing and Textiles Union.
We have staring us in our proverbial face a behemoth, an adversary of vast proportions with very dark goals.
Everything from our private energy use, to our ability to exercise our right to self-defense, to our bank accounts are open game to them. We are the prey, they are the hunters, and, like the Fabian socialists they follow, these figures will move slowly, iteratively, but unrelentingly, towards their goals, stripping our rights, one by one.
This is a battle for the ages, and those who seek to control us and our progeny feel confident enough in their agenda that they are revealing parts of their plan. Let’s spread the word, and warn others.