In order to processes credit cards a business needs a merchant account. Without a merchant account you can’t take credit card payments. When you provide your credit card to a website or you swipe your card the information on the purchase is sent to a gateway which then transfers money from your credit card to the businesses merchant account.

A few days later the money is transferred from the merchant account to the businesses bank accounts.

There are companies that use their merchant account to process payments on a small company or individuals behave. For example, Stripe or PayPal.

When you apply for a merchant account you are filling out a credit application. You have to provide a boat load of information and in the end, if the company or owner of the company has good enough credit, the merchant account is granted.

One of the things about that merchant account is that it has a “merchant category code”. If the merchant account say that you are a fast food restaurant and your average payment is less than $100 and a payment comes through for $3000 dollars, alarms go off and the banks investigate.

There is a lot of statistics gathered about your business as well as other businesses with the same merchant account.

This is also used to protect you. If your credit card is almost always used with small purchase that a homeowner or renter might make and suddenly there is a $700 charge for wine, your credit card company might flag the purchase and request confirmation from you before proceeding with the sale.

This happened for me the other day when I was buying off shore servers. I had to contact my bank to allow the purchase to go through as I don’t normally buy things in Norway.

A New York based bank, Amalgamated Bank, is attempting to get a special merchant code for merchant accounts that sell firearms and ammunition.

They want to be able to track how much a person spends on guns and ammo so they can raise an alarm if they see “to much” spent on aguns and ammo.

Fortunately this has been stopped, so far. The major banks said “hell no” and CBS News is reporting that Amalgamated Bank is very upset that it wasn’t the government but people working for other banks that stopped the new codes. They believe it was rogue employees doing it, not the actual big banks.

These people have no idea about how people make gun purchases. I’ve turned into a collector. When I decided that losing brass cost to much I bought a modern revolver. I have a few SAA and blackpower revolvers. I thought about it and choose .357 as my caliber for this revolver.

So that day a modern .357, a SAA reproduction in .357, a lever action in .357 and a Winchester ’94 in 30-30 followed me home.

Yeah, I sort of like Winchester ’94s. I’ve found I really like to have a rifle/pistol combination and the SAA revolvers don’t scare people. I carried a SAA in .45 Colt as part of a halloween costume once. Nobody thought anything about it. The people around me would have had a fit if they saw me with a plastic fantastic on my hip.

That single purchase would have raised alarm bells back at Amalgamated Bank. I’m betting even a single firearm purchase would have upset them.

The credit card industry has blocked a novel effort to track suspect firearm and ammunition purchases, depriving law enforcement of a potential tool to identify and stop gun crime.

Documents obtained by CBS News show employees from domestic and international credit card companies, including Visa, Mastercard and American Express, pushed back on an application to create a merchant category code for firearm and ammunition sellers.
— CBS News:This bank wants to track suspect credit card sales of guns and ammo. Why can’t it?

Over the last few days there has been a bunch of hyperventing on the left. Blood is going to run in the streets because law abiding people will be allowed to exercise their rights. There are going to be guns where the were not allowed before.

Most of the noise is people that don’t know any better. I’ve had a coworker worry about guns in the office. Since we have clients in our office all the time I said “Likely, we have clients in the office.” She was terrified.

How much more terrified would she have been if she’d known I was carrying at that very moment? Or that my briefcase held a full blowout kit, extra mags and a second 1911?

We’ve had teachers cry to the school board when constitutional carry happened in our state because it meant that parents might have a gun at parent teacher meetings. The school board shut them down because the law exists. What those teachers didn’t understand was that constitutional carry didn’t let parents carry in the schools. That was the “shall issue” CCW. You still need a CCW to legally carry on school property.

A social group I belong to has a number of very outspoken Karens. When they get going on politics they are told “This isn’t a place for politics.” Nevertheless I’ve had to listen to more than one rant about how dangerous it is that people in my state can carry without a permit. How scared they are when they are out in public. I just kept my mouth shut because I was carrying a 1911 IWB strong side. I’d reduced to just one spare mag and had it in my pocket instead of on my belt.

They were afraid and wanted a law.

Today’s article is brought to you by the Karens of Wilmington, NC. They were so frightened when a bunch of Proud Boys came into the library where there was a “pride story time event” going on.

Interestingly, they are described as “far-right extremists”. All the mothers were very very scared and uncomfortable by their presence.

The Karens described that the Proud Boys had angry expressions on their faces which made them feel uncomfortable. They said the group was “loud and disruptive”

More importantly the sheriff’s office issued a statement “There was no disturbance.”

“What we have here is a failure to communicate.” Everybody has a right to protest. Everybody had a right to be in that library. Those Proud Boys were a heck of a lot more respectful than the guests of Democrats in the US Capitol or the “protesters” that have stormed state capitols.

The phrase I grew up with was “I disagree with you but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

I still believe that. The difference is that I’m now defending the rights of conservatives to say what they want while watching so many in power trying to shut down our voices.

“I get it’s a public space, so if people are holding signs outside and they are being peaceful, even if I don’t agree with the things that they are saying, I don’t feel necessarily like my life is in danger. But when a group of known violent people, you know, at that point when those people show up and they’re coming into the library and trying to disrupt the story time. That’s when I felt unsafe and that’s where I felt it was not held appropriately,” Jones said. “And they’re doing that on purpose for sure to intimidate people.”
— WECT Wilmington, NC ‘I felt very unsafe’: Parents speak out after Proud Boys show up at children’s library event

This includes a video but there is no video of any bad behavior on the part of the Proud Boys

On July 22nd, 2011 a horrible mass murder took place. It started with a car bombing in Oslo as a distraction. The murder then traveled to the island of Utøya where he shot and killed 69 people. The blast killed 8 people and dozens were injured.

This took place in a country with very strict gun control laws. He used a Ruger Mini-14 and a Glock pistol in his murders.

But mass shootings only happen in these United States.

On Jun 25, 2022 a murdering asshole killed two people and injured 21 more when he started shooting in a bar. He was a Muslim who was well known to law enforcement.

Keep your head on a swivel. Wherever you go, make sure you know all of your egresses. Be prepared to defend yourself.

OSLO, June 25 (Reuters) – Terrified revellers at a gay bar in Oslo hid in a basement and desperately called loved ones as a gunman went on the rampage, killing two people and injuring 21 on the day the city was due to celebrate its annual Pride parade.
— Reuters: Horror on Oslo Pride day as gunman goes on deadly rampage at gay bar

As John over at No Lawyers – Only Guns and Money points out, as of the start of 2023 the “No Issue” and “May Issue” count will have gone to zero.

Amazing win.

Two sources with knowledge of the situation expressed concern to Rolling Stone that it is an unsafe environment for children, alleging there are unattended guns strewn around the home on Miller’s 96-acre property. One source, who, like the other, requested anonymity for fear of retribution, recalled an instance where one of the children — a one-year-old — allegedly picked up a loose bullet and put it in her mouth.
— RollingStone: Guns, Bullets, and Weed: Ezra Miller Housing Three Young Children and Their Mother at Vermont Farm

Don’t bother to give them the click. I don’t know anything about the person involved, I gave them the click so you wouldn’t have to.

Securing your firearms means different things to different people. There is a scene in Coolhand Luke where we see a convict sent to get a rifle from the truck. The guards were not concerned because that rifle was secured. It was secured because the “boss” had the bolt for the rifle. Without the bolt the rifle would not work.

One of my very first firearms was a Remington 700. At the time I didn’t have a rifle safe, I did have a pistol safe. I had children. I put the bolt in the pistol safe. That rifle would not function without a replacement bolt so it was secure from my children.

It would be nice to spend as much on my safes as I spend on my firearms. I’d have a couple of Fort Knox style safes. A top of the line 24 rifle gun safe can run over $8000. A low end 24 rifle safe will run near enough to $1000.

A locking gun cabinet can be had for less.

The goal is to secure your firearm(s) in a way that protects them from the threats they may encounter.

Many years ago I had to take a psych evaluation in regards to a custody case, so did my ex-wife. One of the questions is designed to discover if you are narcissistic. It read something like “Do you believe that people are trying to steal your work?”. To which I answered “yes”. The automated scoring used this to claim I was narcissistic but they psychologist said “nope, he’s not.” Why? Because I worked in a place where I had to attend briefings every year where important people got up and said “The work we are doing is very important. The work YOU are doing is very important. There are people with lots of resources trying to steal your work.”

Nobody is trying to “steal” my work today. Maybe they want to cheat me out of my labor, but they aren’t trying to steal my work.

When I lived in certain places in Maryland, I expected to have somebody breakin and steal things. It was a bad neighborhood. Even when I lived in better neighborhood I was always concerned about somebody breaking in. Same when I lived in Michigan.

I needed to secure my firearms from thieves. I had to secure them when the thieves would have two or more hours to steal things.

More importantly to me, I had to secure my firearms from my young children.

So there are multiple different “danger” curves you must deal with.

Children

There is a very very short period of time after a child is born before your security of your firearm must be better than “out of reach.”

When my wife was younger she was on very strict diets. Even so, her mother kept cookies in the house. The cookies were stored on top of the refrigerator. My wife can recall using drawers as a step ladder to get up onto the counter and then using other things to reach the top of the refrigerator to reach the cookies. She thinks she was 3 or 4 years old.

My friend didn’t like her pistol because she could not work the slide. It was too heavy. We’ve all seen the videos of a young child cocking a 1911 style pistol by hitching the slide to the edge of a table and using their entire body weight to slide it back.

Children can do more than you expect, so don’t think that an unsecured firearm is “safe” Secure it!

While my grandchild was here, all firearms were secured. That meant “under lock and key.” For the ready weapon in my bedroom that happened to be a cable lock through the magazine well and out the ejection port. Without the key, my grandchild would not be able to operate that firearm.

Would that cable lock slow down a thief taking off with my rifle? No. It would not. House security is a different issue for us. Child security was paramount.

To repeat, every single firearm in the house was kept under lock and key.

How good were most of those locks? They were pure shit. I practice lock picking from time to time. I can pick every single one of the gun locks I have in less than a minute. They are not that secure. Every one of the padlock/cable lock style can be cut with a simple set of bolt cutters.

They were good enough to secure that one weapon from my grandchild.

As my children grew older, security had to increase. All of my firearms were secured in a gun cabinet or a gun safe. In my opinion, the biggest security for my firearms was a policy of access. If my children wanted to see or handle a firearm all they had to do is ask. I would stop what I was doing and pull out the firearm. Go over the safety rules, clear the weapon. Hand it to them and make sure they cleared the weapon.

Security came by them knowing that they firearms were not magic scary things. It came with training and knowledge and a refusal on my part to make them a hidden goal.

Remember how good you were at finding your Christmas presents as a child. Apply that to your children finding your secret gun.

Today I have firearms that are in the safes, some that are in the gun cabinet and some in gun display cases. All of which are secure enough for my children.

The secondary issue is when my children have friends over. When they were younger, that was not an issue as all firearms were always secured. Today it is one of room access. Guests are not allowed in certain areas of the house which means they don’t get access to firearms.

Having said all of this, I’m relaxed about this part of my firearm security.

Quick Snatch and Grab

In my opinion, this is the biggest threat to most of us. This is the thief that notices you disarming before walking across the street to mail a package at the post office. He sees and knows it is a quick smash and group to walk away with a valuable item.

A pistol is worth a few hundred dollars at the least. When I lived near Baltimore we knew that you didn’t leave anything of value in your car if it was parked down there. People had their cars broken because of the coins visible in the center console.

Any car lock box is a good start. Remember what you are securing and what you are protecting from. Yes, a pair of bolt cutters will cut the cable lock easily. The thief doing a smash and grab is unlikely to have bolt cutters with him.

Secure your firearm if you must leave it in your vehicle

When considering your lock box, consider how you are going to access it while in the vehicle. What do you think others see when you have to get out of your vehicle, pull the lock box from under the seat, take your firearm from its holster, put it in the box. Lock the box and put it back in the vehicle?

You need to be able to secure your firearm while sitting in your seat without it looking like the dance of the seven veils.

Also, be very very aware of what is considered a firearm where you are. In MA, a fired shell is a reloading component and requires a license to possess. In Maryland, a magazine with a round in it is considered a loaded gun.

You think you are being a good subject and disarming before entering the local post office? Did you do it in the parking lot? That’s a sensitive location and you aren’t allowed to carry there.

In your home, you have the same consideration in the smash and grab. So the display case above my Lady’s bed is firmly anchored to the wall. Not a J.Kb. levels, but secure enough. The clasps holding closed are locked. The “glass” is actually plexiglass and pretty hard to break.

It would take a little bit of time to rip it off the wall and it would require tools to do so. It is enough to secure a firearm from a child or curious person and enough to slow down a thief for a bit. Call it 5 to 10 minutes.

The gun cabinet is more than enough to secure my firearms from a quick smash and grab.

The cable look for the display case that secures all the rifles is enough.

All of this is designed to stop the smash and grab. That person is not going to have access to anything quickly.

The Burglary

This is where the thieves have time. Enough time without the owner that they can do what they want. In this case your goal is to get that sweet spot where the amount of time it takes them to access or remove your safe is longer than the response time to the monitored alarm.

If the response time to a house alarm in your area is 20 minutes, your safes have to be secure for at least 30 minutes.

So what does secure mean? It means both access and removal. While you might be concerned about having 24 guns rattling around in the bed of your pickup truck, a thief isn’t going to care. If those 24 guns are rattling around in the back of a pickup truck inside a safe, the thieves don’t care either.

Limiting access to a safe means keeping them from getting inside while the safe is in place. So the safe rated at 2 hours with a biometric electronic lock with a key override sounds really good. Until you figure out that it is pretty simple to drill the key override and just unlock it that way.

Get a safe that is actually rated for the time period listed. When I had to break into my own gun cabinet. The key had gone missing. It took 5 minutes with a drill to drill out the cylinder lock. I replaced that lock with a better lock but I was surprised at how easy it was.

There is the physical access as well. The safe that our friend asked us to open took 20 minutes. I was able to use 3 cut off wheels on my angle iron to cut three sides of the back and a crow bar to access the concrete interior. A sledge hammer and a cold chisel made short work of the concrete interior to gain access to the inside of the safe. Total time was about 35 minutes.

Unfortunately the safe didn’t have anything valuable inside.

A person that has physical access to a security container can open it. It is only a question of time and the amount of destruction.

Make sure the safe you purchase has a security rating that will give the cops time to respond to your alarm.

And now to J.Kb.’s point. Make sure they don’t just walk off with that safe!

Just look up YouTube videos of people hooking a truck up to an ATM and just yanking it out of the wall and driving away.

This is the issue. It might take a thief longer to access the safe than it takes to steal the safe.

Your method of securing your safe is dependent on weight and anchors.

Weight is NOT security.

I have machines that weight in excess of two tons in my shop. I move them by myself. The magic is levers, toe jacks and rolling bars. All you have to do is get it up high enough to get a bar under and then you can roll the heavy item where ever you need to go. A goo lever/pry bar will let you turn things AND steel on steel slides darn well.

This means you have to anchor your safe in location.

Leverage is important in this and you have to make sure your anchors are strong enough to not pull out. You also have to consider static vs dynamic load.

I watch a demonstration where a guy carefully hung about 500 pounds off a chain attached to a forged eye bolt that was through a 2 by 8 beam. Absolutely no problem.

This 180 lbs guy then proceeded to rip that eyebolt right through the beam. He took all the hanging weight off the chain and then proceeded to use a whip like motion to impart a huge shock on the system. Much more than the 500lbs he demonstrated with. It was enough to strip the threads and yank the bolt right out of the beam.

The same is true of our safes. If you can get it to rock even a little bit, that motion can be enough to rip bolts out of the floor or from the wall. Make sure you anchor things so they can’t get your safe moving at all.

If you have an air gap between your safe and the wall, consider putting something there and anchoring through that filler into the wall. This doesn’t keep them from getting a pry bar in there or a strap to yank things. It is just to slow them down a little bit more and to keep that safe from moving at all.

Fini

Secure your firearms. Secure them for the time and place you are at. Secure your firearms in such a way they are protected from the threats you anticipate. Secure them well enough that a response can arrive before you loose your firearms.

And remember, the lock picking lawyer isn’t what you are protecting from. Your thief is much more likely to be an animal with a crowbar and more muscles than brains.

So first it is important to note that the Democrats always cheat. They are mean and nasty about it to.

Senator Marco Rubio introduced a bill back in October,2021 to change the name of a courthouse and federal building in Tallahassee, Florida to “Joseph Woodrow Hatchett United States Courthouse and Federal Building”.

That bill was sent to the house where it passed on May 18th, 2022. It had not made it back to the floor of the Senate for a vote.

So an amendment was offered and accepted. This amendment gutted the entire bill and replaced it with the monstrosity that is the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act”.

I expect that shortly after Joe signs this we will see court cases filed. I’m hoping that those filing go for nation wide injunctions. This is likely the next battle in our rights as guaranteed under the second amendment.

You have called your Representative and let them know your opinion on the matter? It might not feel like it makes any difference but if you don’t try it will fail.

The list of Senators voted are All Democrats (including those that claim to be “independents”) plus

• Murkowski, R-AK
• Cotten, R-AR (Not Voting)
• Young, R-IN
• McConnell, R-KY
• Cassidy,R-LA
• Collins, R-ME
• Blunt, R-MO
• Burr, R-NC
• Tillis, R-NC
• Cramer, R-ND (Not Voting)
• Portman, R-OH
• Toomey, R-PA
• Graham, R-SC
• Cornyn, R-TX
• Romney, R-UT
• Capito, R-WV

In an article talking about how the SCOTUS decision will affect the people of NYC some numbers came up.

Around 16,000 New Yorkers have permits that allow them to keep handguns in their homes. Yeah, you need a permit to possess a handgun in your home in NYC.
There are another 700 Business owners that have permits to have a handgun in their place of work.
There are another 3,500 people that can carry guns because of their work
And 2,400 security guards that can carry at work but can’t have a gun at home.

That gives us 20,200 people that can carry a firearm for protection outside of security guards.

The population of NYC is 8,380,000 in 2020. That gives us 241/100,000 within NYC.

There are around 18,660,000 CCW holders in the US. This doesn’t count the millions that live in free states.

That averages out to 5.7k/100,000 across these United States.

Florida does a little better with 6.1K/100,000.

Things that make you go “hmmmmm”

New York Post: What does the Supreme Court ruling on guns mean for NYC?