Tag: gun control

Banks Might Start Closing Accounts Of Customers Who Buy Too Many Guns Or Too Much Ammo

For more than half-a-century, Uncle Sam has been giving banks the legal tools to snoop into the otherwise-private affairs of their customers. Now, they are monitoring the exercise of their Second Amendment rights. 

Thanks to a recent move by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO, headquartered in Switzerland), U.S. banks are starting to build databases on their customers’ purchases of firearms and ammunition. And, of course, they are ready and quite willing to share that information with federal law enforcement in the name of providing a public service to identify “mass shooters.”

This invasion of privacy began in earnest with enactment of the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, which mandated that banks assist federal law enforcement in uncovering, investigating, and ultimately prosecuting violations of federal law. 

Banks have long complained about the burdens of compliance with the 1970 law and several related laws signed since then due to the multi-faceted regulations they spawned. But the trove of data these procedures have allowed banks to gather and database has more than paid for the costs of compliance.

These laws’ main focus, according to the Treasury Department, which has primary responsibility to their enforcement, has been money laundering. Over the years, however, the many-headed hydra we call the system now includes virtually any banking customer activity that a bank employee might consider to be suspicious. In fact, banks’ primary tool in this regard is a document called a “Suspicious Activity Report” or “SAR.”

Then there is the USA PATRIOT Act, passed in the immediate aftermath of the 911 attacks.

The vast reach of the Patriot Act has been a shot of adrenaline to bank “secrecy” laws, creating new sets of problems for banking customers, especially those who operate lawful businesses overseas or engage in transactions with foreign persons or businesses. Banks have at times decided it is easier to simply close down accounts of customers with overseas connections, rather than run the risk of coming under suspicion from Uncle Sam.

The paperwork required of any current or prospective customer of a financial services institution looking to borrow funds for a home, car, or other legal purpose, has ballooned since the Patriot Act’s passage. 

As troublesome as this absurdly massive paperwork burden has become for homebuyers and vehicle purchasers, the banking sector is now zoning in on something far more problematic: customers’ exercise of their Second Amendment rights here at home.

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Bipartisan Bill Would Let Americans Voluntarily Give Up Gun Rights

Congress is trying to pass a bill to allow the federal government to pressure people to give up their Second Amendment rights in the name of suicide prevention. At the same time, newly released documents show multiple federal law enforcement agencies have effectively done this to people without congressional approval.

On Thursday, Gun Owners of America (GOA), put all its evidence online that shows the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has permanently disarmed people. The gun rights group is lobbying on Capitol Hill to stop this practice from being codified.

The bipartisan bill called the “Preventing Suicide Through Voluntary Firearm Purchase Delay Act” passed the Judiciary Committee last week. It says the FBI would create a new database for people who volunteer to be blocked from buying or possessing a gun. The “delay” in the bill title refers to the period from which the person put themselves into the database and potentially subsequently took themselves out of it.

The FBI program, which claims it ended in 2019, and the House bill both use a “self-submission” program to make people prohibited who could not be blocked from having a gun under current law. The Brady Law of 1993 created the NICS system of background checks to help enforce the nine prohibited categories of people (from the Gun Control Act of 1968 ) from buying guns.

The House bill would upend federal background check gun law by making it arbitrary who loses the right to own or buy a gun. Under current law, a person is prohibited from buying or owning a firearm for mental health reasons only due to being adjudicated as mentally defective or involuntarily committed to a mental institution. The House bill makes it so people in this new FBI database who have not experienced these situations would still be committing a federal crime by possessing a gun.

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French Surrender Firearms in Record Numbers During Government Crackdown

French gun owners are surrendering their weapons in record numbers at police collection points across the country as a round up of unlicensed firearms winds down.

France is keen to limit the number of illegally owned firearms – as many as six million, authorities estimate – and the Macron government is offering an amnesty in an effort to limit their distribution.

Rifles, handguns, ammunition, even knives and grenades, have been handed in at 300 collection points across the country since the start of the Ministry of Interior’s campaign on Nov. 25.

Those who bring in the weapons face no penalties and their offerings will be destroyed.

By Wednesday, Reuters reports 65,000 firearms of all types had been turned in, along with 1.6 million bullets and other projectiles.

“This campaign is here to help French people surrender these objects that are rather cumbersome for most,” police commandant Florence Gavello said at the collection point in Nice.

Other authorities shared that optimism of a national disarmament, in keeping with other efforts in countries as far away as Australia to take weapons away from law abiding citizens.

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Rhode Islanders with high-capacity gun magazines face Sunday deadline

Rhode Islander gun owners have until Sunday to turn in large capacity magazines or modify them.

In June, Gov. Dan McKee signed a law that bans magazines with more than 10 rounds. It was upheld by a judge on the 10th anniversary of the Sandy Hook school shooting.

We are pleased with the decision. We expected that to be the case. Rhode Island is trying to make sure we get ahead of any potential problems, and we see them happening and occurring around the country on a regular basis with shootings,” McKee said.

Some local gun shop owners said their clients aren’t the ones who are causing trouble.

“Restricting the number of mags is not going to help in any way curbing any kind of crime, so people are frustrated. It made people feel they did something wrong, and they didn’t,” said David DeLoia, co-owner of Heritage Gun and Coin in West Warwick.

The attorney general’s office said magazines that hold more than 10 bullets can be dropped off at any police station. They can also be sold to a gun dealer or legal owner out of state.

Heritage Gun And Coin Co-owner David DeLoia said people keep buying.

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Gun Shops And Customers Claim Credit Card Firms “Restrict” Firearm Purchases

Gun rights advocates warned that a new change to the credit card industry to add a firearm and ammunition-specific Merchant Category Code (MCC) for gun stores wasn’t about tracking guns necessarily, but could lead to the denial of lawful firearms purchases by law-abiding citizens.

In September, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express all said they would adopt the MCC code to categorize sales at gun shops; months later, several social media posts of alleged gun stores and customers claim they experienced card issues.   

Twitter account “Battlecock Tactical” tweeted, “Federal Firearms License [gun shop] in a Facebook group shared this. Looks like the doomers accurately called how that new firearms merchant code would go down.” 

Battlecock Tactical’s images show what appears to be a retail POS system at an FFL that reads $913.70 transaction was “declined.” The error code on the merchant’s computer read: 

“Transaction declined: Charge declined RESTRICTED CARD Customer bank does not allow this card to be used at this type of merchant.” 

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Washington man who had explosives in underground bunker to spend 42 months in prison

A man living in Washington state will spend 42 months in prison for having guns and explosives inside an underground bunker beneath his house.

The man, 42-year-old James Wesley Bowden, was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle following his arrest in November 2021. The man was arrested after being involved in an altercation at his home that resulted in Bowden threatening another man with a gun, according to a statement from the Department of Justice (DOJ).

When officials responded to the initial report of the altercation, they discovered a room in the garage that officials likened to a “laboratory with various chemicals and equipment consistent with the manufacturing of homemade explosives.”

Once deputies secured the area from the explosives, they found a removable panel on the floor of the garage that led to an underground bunker, according to officials. Inside the bunker, officials found guns, ammunition, grenades, silencers, armor, and other equipment. Two of the weapons were altered to shoot as fully automatic machine guns, the DOJ said.

At the sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez, noted that Bowden’s drug addiction likely caused a substantial portion of his criminal conduct.

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France Requires Heirloom Weapons to Be Turned In Across the Country

France has launched a weeklong campaign for collecting unregistered firearms and ammunition, mostly targeting old and heirloom pieces.

The French government announced its campaign, which ended on Dec. 2, for collecting and destroying old firearms—targeting the around 5 million such pieces that people in the country have. These firearms are mostly remnants from the two World Wars, as France was once the scene of many of the last century’s battles. Other weapons may be old hunting firearms that have not been in use for years.

People that want to keep such firearms will need to register them in the state registration system and undergo checks every year.

“We believe there are about 5 or 6 million weapons that are being kept in an irregular manner by our fellow citizens,” said Jean-Simon Merandat, head of the Interior Ministry’s Central Service for Arms and Explosives. “Eighty to ninety percent of these weapons are in their possession due to an inheritance.”

The campaign has collected at least 1.6 million munition pieces but only 65,000 firearms, the majority of which will be destroyed, and some may be preserved.

“We expect those with historic or cultural value to be spared destruction and brought to one or several museums,” Merandat added.

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New ATF Rule Could Turn Millions of Gun Owners into Felons, Literally Overnight

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is set to release its final rule on Braced firearms later this month.

In Analyzing the proposed rule, which was released June 2021, it appears that ATF has intentionally designed its Factoring Criteria for Rifled Barrel Weapons with Accessories Commonly Referred to as “Stabilizing Braces” to effect a complete ban of every pistol-braced firearm currently on the market.

Masquerading as a helpful rulemaking “to assist” gun owners and the firearms industry in complying with the law, in reality the proposed rule is designed with the obvious and specific intent to largely outlaw the use of stabilizing braces on firearms, threatening millions of current owners with imprisonment and putting a large segment of the gun industry out of business entirely.

To accomplish this goal, the proposed rule creates “Worksheet 4999,” which contains three sections of analysis, each more restrictive than the last, designed to ensure that virtually no stabilizing brace is eligible for use on a non-rifle firearm, and thereafter ensuring that most firearms do not qualify to even use an allowed stabilizing brace.

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Secret Service has Hunter Biden gun probe docs it denied having

The Secret Service has located hundreds of pages of records tied to the investigation of a gun belonging to Hunter Biden – despite having denied they existed, a government watchdog group said Thursday.

Judicial Watch is investigating whether the Secret Service intervened on behalf of President Biden’s son after the incident, and it has sued the agency for all materials related to the reported purchase, possession, and disposal of the firearm owned by Hunter Biden.

The group has accused the Secret Service of repeatedly changing its position on whether it has any documents related to the investigation. 

“The Secret Service’s changing story on records raises additional questions about its role in the Hunter Biden gun incident,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

“One thing is clear, Judicial Watch’s persistence means the public may get records that the Secret Service suggested didn’t exist.” 

On Nov. 10, the Secret Service revealed in a court filing that it has located over 100 records, totaling over 400 pages, potentially related to Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act request. 

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Biden Pushes To Ban ‘Semi-Automatic’ Firearms: ‘No Social Redeeming Value’

President Joe Biden said on Thanksgiving that he is going to try to curtail the Second Amendment freedoms of law abiding Americans by banning “semi-automatic” firearms after a couple of recent shootings.

Biden made the remarks after a recent shooting at a gay nightclub by a man who reportedly identifies as non-binary and after a store manager shot up a Walmart.

“I’m sick and tired of these shootings. We should have much stricter gun laws,” Biden told reporters. “Look, the idea that we’re not enforcing red-flag laws, period, just based on knowledge, not on parents saying or a loved one saying you should arrest this person now for his own sake, is ridiculous.”

“The idea — the idea we still allow semiautomatic weapons to be purchased is sick,” Biden continued. “It’s just sick. It has no, no social redeeming value. Zero. None. Not a single, solitary rationale for it except profit for the gun manufacturers.”

Biden has previously called for banning semi-automatic firearms, including handguns.

“The idea you need a weapon that can have the ability to fire 20, 30, 40, 50, 120 shots from that weapon, whether it’s a, whether it’s a 9mm pistol or whether it’s a rifle, is ridiculous,” Biden said during a CNN town hall event last summer. “I’m continuing to push to eliminate the sale of those things, but I’m not likely to get that done in the near term.”

Biden has also previously suggested that a “rational policy” would be one that “that says you cannot have 20, 30, 40, 50 clips in a weapon.” Biden has also stated that he wants to ban “clips that have multiple bullets in them,” which critics argue would be an effective ban on most semi-automatic firearms.

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