The New York Times published and article titled How Banks Could Control Gun Sales if Washington Won’t.

In the aftermath of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17 students and staff members — and at a time when Washington shows little interest in limiting the sales of assault weapons — there’s a real opportunity for the business community to fill the void and prove that all that talk about moral responsibility isn’t hollow.

Here’s an idea.

What if the finance industry — credit card companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express; credit card processors like First Data; and banks like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo — were to effectively set new rules for the sales of guns in America?

The author didn’t know that back in 2016, Wells Fargo actually did that to Hogue.  PayPal and Square did the same thing.

PayPal, Square, Stripe and Apple Pay announced years ago that they would not allow their services to be used for the sale of firearms.

“We do not believe permitting the sale of firearms on our platform is consistent with our values or in the best interests of our customers,” a spokesman for Square told me.

Now the author wants the rest of the banking industry to do the same.

If Mastercard were to do the same, assault weapons would be eliminated from virtually every firearms store in America because otherwise the sellers would be cut off from the credit card system

There is precedent for credit card issuers to ban the purchase of completely legal products. Just this month, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America banned the use of their cards to buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

To be clear: Those three banks won’t let you use your credit card to buy Bitcoin, but they will happily let you use it to buy an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle — the same kind of gun used in mass shootings in Parkland; Newtown, Conn.; San Bernardino, Calif.; Las Vegas; and Sutherland Springs, Tex.

Bitcoin is used in the international trade of drugs, guns, contraband, even human slaves.  This is very different than the legal purchase of a legal product in the US.  To equate a crypto-currency used to fund terrorism and in money laundering with buying a rifle at Cabela’s is morally repugnant.

But what else would you expect from the NYT?

Visa, oddly enough, is the card of choice of the N.R.A.: There is actually an N.R.A.-branded Visa card issued by First Bankcard, a division of First National Bank of Omaha. And Mastercard proudly announced last year that it was the branded card for Cabela’s, an outdoor gear megastore with a seemingly limitless assault-weapon catalog.

And I have over $300 in Cabela’s points.  I prefer them to air miles.  I hate to travel, I use my kids day care bills to buy ammo for IDPA matches.

If Visa and Mastercard are unwilling to act on this issue, the credit card processors and banks that issue credit cards could try. Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, which issues credit cards and owns a payment processor, has talked about how he and his bank have “a moral obligation but also a deeply vested interest” in helping “solve pressing societal challenges.” This is your chance, Mr. Dimon. 

And here’s a variation on the same theme: What if the payment processing industry’s biggest customers — companies like McDonald’s, Starbucks, Apple, Amazon, AT&T, CVS and others that regularly talk about “social responsibility” — collectively pressured the industry to do it? There’s a chance that some of the payment processors would stop handling gun sales. Perhaps their voices would help push one of the banks to step out and lead?

It is amazing how fast the Left went from Occupy Wall Street “big banks are bad” to “lets use the big banks for social change.”

Another critique is that it is impossible to prevent every shooting, no matter how guns are restricted. And the banks’ actions would affect millions of their own law-abiding customers, effectively dictating what they can and cannot buy.

That is all true.  But to him, the inconvenience to gun owners is more of a feature than a bug.

The most troubling aspect of having the finance industry try to restrict gun sales is that it would push the most dangerous guns into an untraceable world where sales would depend on cash. That’s true. All things considered, though, it would make it considerably harder to even find such guns.

This moron has no idea how much of the gun world is already a cash business.  Cash is king.

None of this is a panacea. But it’s a start. It takes leadership and courage — exactly what these executives say they have. If they don’t want to back up their words with actions, the next time there’s a school shooting that prompts a conversation about gun companies, it should also include the financial complex that supports them.

Ultimately, what this idiot wants is the banks to be our moral betters.  He wants the banks to have control over our lives, approving what we buy and how we live.

Putting that kind of power in the hands of banks is horrifying.  Will the environmentalists convince the banks not to finance SUVs, trucks, or non-fuel efficient vehicles?  What about alcohol or tobacco or any other industry.  There are diamonds that still come from slave mines in Africa, maybe we can organize the banks to stop dealing with the jewelry industry.  The iPhone is made by Chinese slaves, with coltan dug by African slaves.  Maybe banks should end all financial ties to and not process sales with Apple.

The thing is, this would be all but useless.  There is always cash, but there is a lot more than cash available.   I’ve bought guns with gold fillings when the price of gold shot up over $1,500/oz and the local pawn and gun was buying gold at a premium.

Then there is entrepreneurship.  PayPal only dates back to 1998.  Please for the love of fuck pull the banking industry out of gun sales.

In 2015, the firearms and ammunition industry did $13.5 billion in sales, and gun stores did $3.1 billion. 

I got a buddy on Wall Street I can get backing from.  I will create online gun sales processing dotcom – and rake in my cut of that money.

But it’s that $13.5 billion that is the answer.  Are the banks really going to give that up?  Ruger did over $400 million in sales last year.  Remington did $700 million.  Vista Outdoors did $2.5 billion.

Is the whole of the banking industry going to walk away from that much money?

I doubt it.  If they do, the rush to replace it will happen overnight.

The Left is pulling out all the stops after Parkland.  There is no idea too absurd that they won’t suggest.

This one is bad, but it will get worse.

I was chatting with my buddy over at The Bull in Miami.

Alabama is still very solidly pro gun.  The news of Remington and now Kimber moving to Alabama was met with excitement and welcome.

My buddy in Miami says that people are looking over their shoulders there.

The anti-gun hysteria after Parkland is hitting resonance with the anti-Trump #Resistance and is getting out of hand.

Some people can try and walk back how “Kill the NRA” is just a statement about money in policts, but we all know that it’s bullshit.

I fear Parkland is the one that breaks us.  Not because of Parkland but because it is the Resistance’s Reichstag fire around which all of their hatred of Trump and the GOP can coalesce into something dangerous.

Be careful out there.

San Francisco is a third world sewer.

The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit surveyed 153 blocks of downtown San Francisco in search of trash, needles, and feces. The investigation revealed trash littered across every block. The survey also found 41 blocks dotted with needles and 96 blocks sullied with piles of feces.

As the Investigative Unit photographed nearly a dozen hypodermic needles scattered across one block, a group of preschool students happened to walk by on their way to an afternoon field trip to city hall.

“We see poop, we see pee, we see needles, and we see trash,” said teacher Adelita Orellana. “Sometimes they ask what is it, and that’s a conversation that’s a little difficult to have with a 2-year old, but we just let them know that those things are full of germs, that they are dangerous, and they should never be touched.”

In light of the dangerous conditions, part of Orellana’s responsibilities now include teaching young children how to avoid the contamination.

America’s second most expensive city with its $400,000 shacks, is a cesspool of HIV and Hepatitis.

So here is my opinion for the day:

I am no longer going to accept lectures on how to keep guns off our streets from people who can’t keep human shit and drug needles off of their streets.  Full stop.  

The US Military Academy at West Point gave an honorary acceptance to Peter Wang, the Douglas JROTC student who gave his life to save others.

West Point offers honorary acceptance to student killed in Florida school shooting https://t.co/LSw1kutfwo pic.twitter.com/9w2zPoMApM

— The Hill (@thehill) February 20, 2018

Wang deserved the honor of attending West Point far more than that slimy, Communist fuck-shit, Rapone.

I’m just wondering after that debacle, if West Point deserved Peter Wang?

From Chris Cuomo of CNN and the son and brother of two governors of New York.

in my experience, engaging in gun vocab is mostly a distraction. Ar's are military style rifle. period. too many people get them and use them to kill innocent people. who gets them and how must be reconsidered. https://t.co/TwF5Ao9aKS

— Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 20, 2018

Translation:

Stop calling us out on our ignorance about guns and gun laws.  We are your moral and class superiors.  Our moral outrage is justification enough.  Who are you flyover country rubes to question us?

For these people ignorance and not knowledge is a sign of superiority.  To them guns are a base thing and it is a sign of virtue not to know about guns. 

They are proud that they dont know how to change their oil or pump a septic tank.  That is poor people work and they are too good to know how to do that. 

Emma Gonzalez is a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school.  She survived an unbelievable tragedy, and my heart goes out to her for that.

However, thanks to CNN, that is where my empathy ends and my anger begins.

She is a victim.  By the laws of modern social convention, that gives her power and the right to get vengeance against those she identified as her oppressors.

CNN gave her a platform and she gave this speech.

That is a power play.  She’s got her notes from AP Government and is proceeding to lecture the United States on its Founding Father’s intentions on guns and the effectiveness of the Australian gun ban, and argues against the NRA and Trump.

CNN interviewed her a second time, along with a friend.

This is a girl who is now addicted to power.  She is going to use her victim status be beat other people into submission with the help of CNN.  Fast forward to 4:12 and she is asked “what do you say to the NRA?”

Their answer is “disband, dismantle” and “don’t you dare come back here.”

The NRA is an organization of millions of members and has existed since 1871, but it’s supposed to disband because one teenage girl says so?

Forget the Second Amendment, that’s and attack on the First Amendment “right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

She immediately jumps into the progressive politics of power dynamics.  The NRA “has had power for so long” and now it is time for a victim to take that power away.  She said “gun control is the first thing we are focusing on.”  Meaning what?  After gun control what comes next?  Once she has achieved her power play on guns, what is the next ‘for the children‘ right she wants to take away?

Then she lays down her ultimatum.  NRA money is blood money.

This of course is the ONLY reason conservative politicians support gun rights, it’s not that they have principles or anything.  I’m pretty sure the NRA gives money to politicians who  support gun rights and not politicians support gun rights because of a few thousand dollars of NRA money.  I doubt Ted Cruz would vote for an AWB if the NRA didn’t cut his campaign a check.  I think this is just another example of Liberal projection.  They have no principles except doing what they need to, to stay and power, so they assume gun rights supporters are the same.

Back to NRA blood money.  She makes it clear politicians “funding the killers or standing with the children.”  Miguel covered the “NRA trained Cruz” lie already.  This girl is doubling down on it on CNN and making it clear that you are either with her or against her.  There is no middle ground.

That is a power play.  Either give up your gun rights, your right of assembly, your right to engage in politics, or you are “against the children.”  And, of course, on a monster would be “against the children.”

“If you can’t get elected without taking money from child murderers, why are you running?”

That is a hell of a statement, calling the NRA child murderers and impugning the morality of anybody on the other side of their position.

I want to support the kids who survived watching their classmates getting killed.  But this girl and her friend have thrown down the gauntlet and declared me her enemy.

She’s a victim and I must bend to her will.  I have to stop supporting the NRA, give up my guns, and acquiesce to whatever restriction of rights she proposes next, or I am a child murderer who stands against the children.

Nope.  I’m not going to let a teenage girl, or anybody for that matter, get on CNN with their freshly minted victim status and tell me what rights I’m allowed to have.

CNN has sucked all the sympathy for this girl and her classmates away.

This will be my third time covering The Root.  The last time, I didn’t think The Root could be more racist or give worse advice to black men.

I was wrong.

Like the Jabari tribe of #Wakanda, it might be high time we start barking at white people when they speak out of turn: https://t.co/JGb6qRfnGi #BlackPanther pic.twitter.com/6LdTRruWbl

— The Root (@TheRoot) February 19, 2018

Full disclosure, I haven’t seen Black Panther.  I’m waiting for it to hit HBO.

Sargon of Akkad gives a rundown of the movie and describes this scene from the movie (NSFW Language).

So this is the article that Damon Young published.

We Need To Start Barking At White People Who Speak Out Of Turn

One thing, however, that we can and definitely should start doing is what M’Baku and his Que Dog Jabari Tribe did when encountering a problematic white dude who was speaking when there was no ask or need or purpose for the thoughts and opinions of problematic white dudes.

Bark.

Not a purposeless bark. This isn’t a shih tzu barking through the window at a squirrel. Instead this would be an intentional bark. A targeted bark. An overpowering bark. A drowning bark. A Wakandan bark. A bark meant to communicate “Um, who told you that you can speak? When it is time for your words, we will let you know. And maybe that time will never come. We’ll see. Now, just shut up and stand there. Maybe get on your phone and google ‘How not to be a colonizer.’ Whatever you do, I want to hear you not speaking.”

 The bark doesn’t just have to be a counter for useless words, either. A wayward white hand reaches for your hair? WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! A group of white people huddled on a sidewalk refuse to step aside when you attempt to walk past them? WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! A purse is clutched when you walk on an elevator? WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! (If they’re going to act scared, you might as well give them a reason to be.)

Let me see if I get this straight?

My wife and I, or some buddies of mine and I are standing, talking on a sidewalk or out in front of a restaurant somewhere, minding out own business, and all of a sudden, some black man starts barking or howling at us like a mad animal.

Is this supposed to do anything other than invite a searing blast of mace to the face?

If somebody started barking at me, my first thought isn’t going to be “I had best check my white privilege.”  It’s going to be much more along the lines of “this person is clearly insane and I best be prepared to defend myself.”

I’m not sure how acting like a howler monkey is going to make white people respect black people.

The last time I covered The Root, Young was giving black men advice how to get fired.  Now he is giving them advice on how to get the cops called on them.

This is so bad that if I found out Damon Young was really a Klansman with a black avatar, trolling a black magazine, it would actually make more sense.