By the author of The Prepper’s Guide to Post-Disaster Communications and Zombie Choices.
The Second Amendment has been under attack for a long time, but we have seen a series of rather bizarre attacks directed its way over the course of the past two months that more Americans need to be aware of.
Increased credit card tracking of gun purchases is now taking place.
For starters, it was last month that Elizabeth Warren sent out a tweet saying that “Credit card companies like @Visa, @Mastercard, and @AmericanExpress can and should do more to help stop mass shootings. @RepDean and I are urging these companies to step up and help identify suspicious purchases to prevent gun violence.”
Within three days, credit card giant Visa stated that they were changing the way that they recorded firearm sales within their business. Instead of being categorized under the “general merchandise” category, firearm sales will now apparently be listed under their own designation, meaning that there is another way that these purchases can be isolated and tracked by credit card companies.
With this new designation, banks would then have the ability to deny the use of credit cards to purchase anything firearm related. If the bank is notified that there is a pending purchase for something under the new firearm category, they can easily deny the transaction, should they desire to do so.
After Visa made this decision, Mastercard and American Express quickly followed suit, meaning that three of the largest credit card companies within the United States of America all now have a much easier means of tracking anything firearm related.
But we’re not only seeing attacks on the Second Amendment from the banking/financial sector.
Even the shipping industry seems to be working toward the same goals.
We saw this last month, in September 2022, as UPS changed their policies to require businesses to ship at least 350 handguns per week in order to qualify for UPS’ 2nd Day Air Service. This move will effectively eliminate a large portion of smaller online handgun retailers that come nowhere near meeting the 350 handgun threshold from being able to participate in this type of shipping.
Because of this move, a lot of retailers are then likely going to have to pay for UPS’ Next Day Air Service, causing the cost of shipping handguns to rise significantly for Americans seeking to purchase a handgun online.
This news came roughly at the same time as Ghost Firearms was told that their UPS account was being canceled and that UPS was going to “seize and destroy” the company’s packages if the contents of those packages were found to contain illegal goods. At the time, UPS is said to have had $30,000 worth of Ghost Firearms’ inventory within their system.
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Now, it appears we’re seeing further moves by UPS against the gun industry.
An allegedly new UPS policy is allegedly being sent out to gun retailers who ship via UPS throughout the country.
According to AmmoLand.com, these businesses must sign the new policy paperwork or risk having UPS refuse to ship their packages.
Within this alleged new policy paperwork, Section 12.2 states that the shipper will provide
“order information (e.g., invoice, packing list, and any other relevant documentation) to demonstrate contents of specific packages (tracking numbers) identified by UPS.”
According to AmmoLand.com, it appears that UPS states that gun companies who desire to do business with them must turn over customer data to UPS, must provide UPS the invoices for any firearm-related products, and must now create compliance policies/courses for their own businesses that meet up to UPS’ standards (Section 12.1).
It also appears, according to section 4 of the above document, that UPS retains the right to refuse to ship firearms to any state in the Union at any time.
Furthermore, the allegedly new policy states firearm sellers must also agree that they will turn over this data to UPS within five business days of the request being made (Section 12.2) and must agree to let UPS audit these books to ensure compliance (Section 12.2).
Is this policy the result of this strongly worded letter sent to the company by 5 senators with a history of encouraging gun control?
Will online gun retailers survive?
When you take a look at everything from a distance, it doesn’t appear as if the world of selling guns online has much hope of surviving within the United States of America, particularly if policy changes such as those discussed above become the norm. If people cannot purchase your items without having everything they do tracked, and if you cannot ship items without everything being tracked, all anonymity has disappeared from the purchase.
One doesn’t have to ponder over all of this very long to come to the conclusion that this will lead nowhere good.
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What are your thoughts on the subject?
Are there other similar moves towards making it almost impossible to buy and ship guns online that you are aware of that we did not discuss above? Let us know what you think in the comment section below.
About Aden
Aden Tate is a regular contributor to TheOrganicPrepper.com and TheFrugalite.com. Aden runs a micro-farm where he raises dairy goats, a pig, honeybees, meat chickens, laying chickens, tomatoes, mushrooms, and greens. Aden has four published books, What School Should Have Taught You, The Faithful Prepper, An Arm and a Leg, The Prepper’s Guide to Post-Disaster Communications, and Zombie Choices. You can find his podcast The Last American on Preppers’ Broadcasting Network.
I switched to all cash firearm related purchases some time ago. Mostly just ammo now as I have all the firepower I need. I would suggest cash and buy local.
As a collector, hard to find high grade side by sides locally. The same with classic side arms. If the only firearms that I purchased were “scary black guns” and semi-automatic handguns, I could do that locally and with cash. For collectors, not that easy of a task.
Wow, ok. Every large shipping company, and many medium-sized, have had the same letter sent to them.
So, cash only and support your local businesses, as Grumpy stated.
I didn’t do the math using the numbers of the weakly recorded stolen guns provided by the police reports, but I bet the % is ridiculously insignificant.
If you don’t change the minds and hearts of the people, nothing changes. Crime continues.
I tried to post this article to FB, refused because it contained content that “other people: might find offensive! What a crock of s@#t! I had another post, from 6 years ago, blocked for violating community standards. The post dealt with news being used or abused by the gov’t to achieve a desired goal. We are being hammered from within and without!
Mastercard and Visa make money by charging a small surcharge when the card is used…so begin using cash or bartering/trading. When shopping for guns/ammo, buy local. Boycott UPS…most of our shipments are delivered by FedEx and they do a good job. Any package delivered by UPS becomes an egg hunt…where did they put it (one package was marked delivered on the front porch…we found it in the bed of my husband’s pickup truck!) If we all would stop using these idiots, they would begin to back off.
The fact that these new “rules” are interfering with the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution, apparently hasn’t occurred to these companies. The solution is to purchase your weapon(s) using cash which is worth about as much as credit cards, since both are “paper based” with nothing but the purchaser’s good intentions to secure payment to the firearms company.
What the CC companies and UPS are doing is blatantly illegal/unconstitutional. Congressional leaders have suggested that these companies should do what they themselves cannot do.This is why we as a law abiding nation MUST continue to build our parallel economy and kick the the CC companies and UPS to the curb.We can beat them at their own game.Do NOT use CC or UPS.Buy local and with cash.The CC companies are creating a backdoor firearm registry, which is illegal and are trying to stop individuals from purchasing what is legal to own,as is UPS.Everyone must send a clear and concise message to FedEx and warn them that if they do what UPS has chosen to do,we will discontinue doing service with them as well.
When this was first reported on, I read an article about one gun shop owner who immediately called to have a ATM machine installed at his location.
The last gun show I went to, the vast majority of transactions took place in cash.
We use cash only. have been using cash only for years for this type of purchase.
I ONLY use local , do not order anything like that online. It’s worth it to buy local even if it is a bit overpriced, because you get to know other folks in your area that are of the same mindset. It’s all about networking and building an alternative currency system, because this is just the tip of the iceberg. bejing biden chief clown not in charge signed a digital currency EO back in March of 2020. The NWO powers to be want to control all aspects of us peons lives.
I’m much the same. I’ve purchased very little online (some reloading components a few years back).
I try to keep it local if it’s at all possible for the very same reasons you gave.
If at all possible, purchase with cash locally. Great idea above about gun shops installing ATMs on site. That would certainly help.
I wouldn’t even use checks because they are trackable.
PS at the last gun show I went to, “my guy” said he was no longer accepting credit cards, but luckily they had ATM machines all over the gun show floor.
At the same time the IRS is recruiting thousands of new agents with ads demanding they must be willing to shoot Americans.
https://yournews.com/2022/08/12/2394568/mike-adams-emboldened-irs-demands-new-hires-be-willing-to/
When the all-digital Biden bucks replace your cash (or make it instantly worthless if you simply keep it hidden), the central bank control of that digital money can control what you are not allowed to buy or sell. That will simultaneously kill both the 2nd and 4th US constitutional amendments. The difference between the grossly law-breaking Biden crime syndicate’s actions and Lenin’s 1917 Bolshevik revolution would seem to be only a matter of a different language.
–Lewis
Lewis,
Never underestimate the power of saying, “No.”
Dang near half the country did against the jab. Another 25% would of if it were not for blackmailing Biden’s “No jab! No job!” mandate that got struck down.
Personally, I’m glad my foes are identifying themselves for me. No more guessing and wondering. I like that. That’s the beauty of hubris.
I always look for he silver lining.
I don’t like it for a couple of reasons, but fortunately, Brownell’s is only about an hour’s drive from me.
I’ve never used a Credit Card to purchase a Firearm, always cash. I do use one of the loadable use it and toss it Debit Cards for the few items I’ve purchased online. I try to buy the bulk of my needs locally if I can.
Needless to say, UPS’s policy change is still a huge concern for all of us, because it could very easily go beyond Firearms to include other “Prepping” items.
How soon before the USPS and Fed Ex bow to pressure and follow UPS’s path?
Prepaid debit cards bought with cash.
These are for the rare “anything” I have to order online.
It isn’t interfering with “rights” at all. You want merchandise within 2 days, you pay. There should be no discount for impatience, much less want, not a need.
Though I do enjoy hearing the outrage when a law/business decision isn’t what s/he likes.
a lot of folks sniveling about these gun-related issues remind me of folks getting on trains, and sniveling about the abhorrent conditions of the cars, instead of
refusing to get on the trains
exiting the area,
looking for ways to sabotage the trains
where were the mama-bear-type women when vermin came for their children?
those current-day snivelers could do better by remembering this quote:
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
I get that a lot of commenters here have already acted to protect themselves; good for them. My comment is about those folks who cry, who comply, who hope not to die….
Yeah, I thought this even before reading AS quotes because it makes sense even now.
We must find alternative shipping methods and leave UPS out of the loop.
Ironically, it is people like Pocohaunted that is causing gun violence to rise with her political Demoncrap policies. Too bad UPS does not get this and became unAmerican overnight. (No pun intended).
Personally, I think this is some of the best news I’ve heard in a while, and I hope it keeps guns out of the hands of people with mental illnesses, underage, felons etc.
Having said that… here goes again:
The Constitution is directed at what GOVERNMENT can and can’t do, Not private businesses, not individuals. It’s not the Ten Commandments.
If a private bakery can’t be forced by government to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, if Hobby Lobby can’t be forced to include contraception coverage in their employee health care plan, then neither can VISA/AMEX/MC/UPS be told what they can and cannot do as far as facilitating the purchase or shipping of guns or gun-related items. You can’t tell private newspapers or other media what to publish in the name of the first amendment (although it has to survive the New York Times vs. Sullivan libel test, another whole discussion).
This is what capitalism, a free market, is. If you don’t like it and want the government or courts to force private companies to do or not do certain things that are legal but you dislike, congratulations, you’re a facist, and probably a bunch of other -ists as well.
Don’t like it? Well, one thing private companies really like is money. Vote with your wallet, and let them know why. Or start your own VISA, Facebook, etc so you can call the shots.
In the meantime, stop and think the next time you complain about USPS and want it privatized. There’s far-reaching consequences to this, and not just that it’d cost $20 to deliver a letter from Dubuque to Wichita, but only a quarter to deliver a letter across Manhattan.
The unconstitutional part is where congresscritters (the govt.) lean on these private companies to do these things, or to censor “misinformation”, etc. That is what we protest.
Super Dave,
Cannot say if members of Congress “lean” on private companies to do anything, but it is quite clear MSM, and Big Tech suppress or censor in favor of one particular political party.
Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey publicly admitted suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop was wrong.
It is also quite clear some companies are taking up Leftist woke policies, and will punish anyone who does not fall in line. The recent PayPal policy is one example. Yes, PayPal did reverse that policy, but only after significant backlash. They tried to spin it as a mistake but anyone with half a brain knows better.
A poll showed 16% of voters would of voted differently had they known more about the Hunter Biden laptop.
Could that changed the 2020 election outcome?
Side note, a recent NYT/Siena poll found 59% of Americans said MSM was a Major Threat to democracy. 25% said MSM was a Minor Threat to democracy.