NY Times pressures Credit Card Giants to Blacklist Gun Purchases

The New York Times (NYT) is pressuring credit card giants to monitor customers’ buying habits and blacklist gun purchases.

The Times suggests banks are “unwittingly financing mass shootings” by allowing individuals to use their cards to buy firearms and related accessories.

Two days before Omar Mateen killed 49 people and wounded 53 more at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, he went on Google and typed “Credit card unusual spending.” Mr. Mateen had opened six new credit card accounts — including a Mastercard, an American Express card and three Visa cards — over the previous eight months. Twelve days before the shooting, he began a $26,532 buying spree: a Sig Sauer MCX .223-caliber rifle, a Glock 17 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, several large magazines, thousands of rounds of ammunition and a $7,500 ring for his wife that he bought on a jewelry store card. His average spending before that, on his only card, was $1,500 a month.

They pivot to the June 20, 2012, Aurora movie theater attack:

A little more than a month before James E. Holmes killed 12 people and injured 70 others at a Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colo., in 2012, a psychiatrist was considering having him involuntarily committed. Mr. Holmes quit his job, filed for unemployment benefits and used a new Mastercard issued by USAA to help buy more than $11,000 in weapons and military gear. He bought two tear-gas grenades, a gas mask and filter, a .40-caliber Glock handgun, a 12-gauge shotgun, a .223-caliber AR-15, a 100-round drum magazine, two 40-round magazines, a laser sight, a bulletproof vest, 5,000 rounds of ammunition, two sets of handcuffs and “road stars” meant to slice through car tires.

They jump to the Las Vegas attacker, “who spent nearly $95,000 on firearms and gun-related purchases in the year before the massacre, buying some 55 guns, according to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s report.”

In between various examples of mass shooters, they point out systems credit card companies have in place — or could put in place — to detect firearm purchases and either refuse them altogether or flag them to see how much is being spent on guns.

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