There Are Many Forms Of Gun Control–None Of Them Constitutional

The Second Amendment to the U. S. Constitution states:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Let’s put this in context. This is part of the Bill of Rights–a document that protects the God-given rights espoused in the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution is a document that limits the rights of government and protects the God-given rights of citizens. The right to bear arms was inserted to keep the people armed to prevent another tyranny like the one they had just escaped. The Second Amendment limits the government–not the citizens.

On Thursday, Breitbart reported:

Beginning in April 2023, Discover will become the first credit card issuer to track gun purchases made by their cardholders.

On September 11, 2022, Breitbart News noted that Visa caved to pressure from gun control groups and New York Democrats, agreeing to flag gun and ammo purchases via a new sales categorization. The Associated Press observed that Mastercard and other major credit cards also agreed to flag gun sales.

On March 2, 2023, the Independent Journal Review (IJR) reported that Discover will be first among credit card companies to track gun sales, inasmuch as the company will begin doing so in April.

Make no mistake–this is not a good thing. First of all, criminals who commit gun crimes do not generally purchase their guns legally using a credit card. This will only track legal gun owners, who are highly unlikely to commit gun crimes.

In 2016, The National Review reported:

In the study, led by epidemiologist Anthony Fabio of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health, researchers partnered with the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police to trace the origins of all 893 firearms that police recovered from crime scenes in the year 2008.

They found that in approximately 8 out of 10 cases, the perpetrator was not a lawful gun owner but rather in illegal possession of a weapon that belonged to someone else. The researchers were primarily interested in how these guns made their way from a legal purchase — at a firearm dealer or via a private sale — to the scene of the crime.

So what is the usefulness of tracking legal gun sales? Why would anyone want to do that? That is a very good question.