alan
Member
Poster's question: Otherthings aside hasn't Citi Group been up to it's eyebrows in the current and ongoing sub prime mess, as a major player therein?
Vin Suprynowicz's
The Libertarian
What would you do to defend your gun rights?
SWITCH BANKS?
CDNN Sports of Abilene, Texas is an advertiser in Shotgun News.
Frankly, if I had my way, such folks would simply open the envelope containing my check--or the e-mail with my credit card data--package up that old 1903 Winchester self-loader that I've had my eye on, and ship it right to my door. That's the way it was done in this country for hundreds of years--a period of time during which "mass schoolyard shootings" were unheard of.
But the central government in its wisdom has decided otherwise. They're still trying to come up with a law that would have prevented Lee Harvey Oswald--assuming we buy the official version--from acquiring the miserable sticky-bolt Italian Carcano with which we all devoutly believe he fired several quick shots from a sixth floor window through the autumn leaves at Dealey Plaza in Dallas 44 years ago, hitting John Connally and John F. Kennedy--once from the front--in a moving car.
(Among the thing they've tried? Banning firearms with full-sized magazines and descending pistol grips. You don't even have to look to know how many of those features are present on the old bolt-action Carcano, do you?)
In pursuit of this dream, for more than 40 years now these floppy-shoed clowns have adhered to the collectivist doctrine that--instead of merely punishing that one-in-a-hundred-million guy who means to do harm--it's more sensible to inconvenience and tread on the constitutional rights of the other 99.9 million of us, in a pursuit of "safety" as foredoomed as the king in the fairy tale trying to banish every needle from the kingdom so his daughter couldn't prick her finger.
Therefore, if I want a firearm from out of state I submit with my payment a copy of the federal firearms license of my local gun store. The seller ships to that gun store. I then go down to the store in person and jump through all the "background check" hoops required to buy my antique souvenir of the heyday of American engineering.
The gun grabbers, the hoplophobes, said if we just agreed to this one additional, ridiculous infringement on our right to bear arms, they'd be satisfied.
They lied. We are under attack by a ruthless, disingenuous mob of evil collectivists who will not be happy till they've restricted firearms ownership to the blue-gloved government police who they hire to say "Travel papers, bitte? Photo ID?"
On Dec. 26--Merry Christmas!--Charlie Crawford of CDNN Sports received a letter from June Rivera-Mantilla, writing on the letterhead of Citi Merchant Services, Provided by First Data Merchant Services Corporation under the "citi" logo of Citigroup Inc., which has licensed First Data to use that logo.
"We hereby provide notice that effective immediately the contract" for this Citi outfit to handle processing of online credit card sales for CDNN Sports "is terminated," Ms. Rivera-Mantilla wrote.
Why?
"We discussed with Mr. Crawford said termination due to the sale of firearms in a non face-to-face environment," the letter says (rather oddly, since it's addressed to Mr. Crawford.) "Keep in mind that a violation of the Gun Control Act occurs when a gun offered online is sold to an individual in another State; the act prohibits selling a handgun to a resident of another state. Shipping across state lines is also banned, yet guns for sale online reach people across the county. We at Citi merchant Service are unable to monitor or track adherence to these Gun Control laws. ..."
OK. They also can't monitor whether a car dealer is selling a new car to a drunk, or whether a tavern is selling me too many beers. Does that mean they refuse to process credit card transactions for car dealers and joints that serve alcohol?
"Should you have any questions please feel free to contact me at 631-683-7734," Ms. Rivera-Mantilla concludes.
I did have some questions. For starters, if "shipping across state lines is also banned," how do all those guns get into the display cases of perfectly legal gun shops in states where they're not manufactured?
So I called the number. I got a recording that told me I couldn't even leave a message. There was an e-mail address: [email protected].
So I e-mailed:
"June Rivera-Mantilla, et al., First Data Merchant Services Corp., Melville, NY
"Hi, Ms. Rivera-Mantilla --
"I'm in receipt of a copy of your letter of Dec. 26 to Charlie Crawford at CDNN Sports in Abilene, canceling your contract for credit-card processing for that firm, based on your assertion that 'A violation of the Gun Control Act occurs when a gun offered online is sold to an individual in another state.' ...
"Your 'Please do not leave messages on this mailbox' message does seem to confirm you know about this, since it goes on to advise 'If you have any concerns or questions about CDNN, please send an e-mail.'
"So I'm writing you. I wonder if you could 1) confirm that this letter is legitimate, 2) tell me if this still reflects your firm's policy and whether you will similarly be refusing to service other licensed firearms dealers engaged in this legal form of commerce, and 3) cite which federal statute you're referring to.
"Keep in mind that it is not a violation of law to sell a gun to a person in another state. I've bought guns from out-of-state federally licensed firearms dealers myself, many times. They demand a copy of the FFL of the gun store to which they are to ship the rifle or handgun. They then ship the weapon across state lines to an FFL holder--a federally licensed gun dealer--here in Nevada. I pick up the gun there, meeting that local dealer 'face-to-face' and fulfilling any and all local and federal requirements concerning background check, etc.
"The BATFE tells us this (no matter how cumbersome, silly, and unconstitutional) is the legal way to get it done. ..."
As of this writing, I've received no response. If Ms. Rivera-Mantilla and company get back to me--or decide to start answering the phone--I'll let you know what they say.
Meantime, this is war. The forces of victim disarmament--apparently including the board of CitiBank, or whatever it's now called--will sidestep no opportunity to make it progressively more difficult and finally impossible for us to exercise our constitutional right to defend ourselves against tyrants and other, less organized criminals.
The commerce against which this outfit seeks to selectively withhold its services is not only legal, it's constitutionally protected.
In 1999, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives estimated private American citizens owned 215 million firearms. Even if the average gun-defended household owns two, that means 100 million Americans continue to exercise the one right on which all our other rights depend.
If one hundred million Americans decide June Rivera-Mantilla and her gang are trying to put law-abiding, federally licensed firearm dealers out of business by lying about the law, by accusing them of violating the law with no evidence from the courts or the BATFE--if those 100 million Americans just decided tomorrow to stop doing business with any outfit that displays that little "citi" logo with the arch across the top--do you suppose they might notice?
I got a piece of junk mail today, from some outfit offering me a low-interest credit card. It had that little "citi" logo printed on it, in red and black. So I threw it away.
Will you?
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the daily Las Vegas Review-Journal and author of the novelThe Black Arrow. See Liberty Book Shop.
Vin Suprynowicz's
The Libertarian
What would you do to defend your gun rights?
SWITCH BANKS?
CDNN Sports of Abilene, Texas is an advertiser in Shotgun News.
Frankly, if I had my way, such folks would simply open the envelope containing my check--or the e-mail with my credit card data--package up that old 1903 Winchester self-loader that I've had my eye on, and ship it right to my door. That's the way it was done in this country for hundreds of years--a period of time during which "mass schoolyard shootings" were unheard of.
But the central government in its wisdom has decided otherwise. They're still trying to come up with a law that would have prevented Lee Harvey Oswald--assuming we buy the official version--from acquiring the miserable sticky-bolt Italian Carcano with which we all devoutly believe he fired several quick shots from a sixth floor window through the autumn leaves at Dealey Plaza in Dallas 44 years ago, hitting John Connally and John F. Kennedy--once from the front--in a moving car.
(Among the thing they've tried? Banning firearms with full-sized magazines and descending pistol grips. You don't even have to look to know how many of those features are present on the old bolt-action Carcano, do you?)
In pursuit of this dream, for more than 40 years now these floppy-shoed clowns have adhered to the collectivist doctrine that--instead of merely punishing that one-in-a-hundred-million guy who means to do harm--it's more sensible to inconvenience and tread on the constitutional rights of the other 99.9 million of us, in a pursuit of "safety" as foredoomed as the king in the fairy tale trying to banish every needle from the kingdom so his daughter couldn't prick her finger.
Therefore, if I want a firearm from out of state I submit with my payment a copy of the federal firearms license of my local gun store. The seller ships to that gun store. I then go down to the store in person and jump through all the "background check" hoops required to buy my antique souvenir of the heyday of American engineering.
The gun grabbers, the hoplophobes, said if we just agreed to this one additional, ridiculous infringement on our right to bear arms, they'd be satisfied.
They lied. We are under attack by a ruthless, disingenuous mob of evil collectivists who will not be happy till they've restricted firearms ownership to the blue-gloved government police who they hire to say "Travel papers, bitte? Photo ID?"
On Dec. 26--Merry Christmas!--Charlie Crawford of CDNN Sports received a letter from June Rivera-Mantilla, writing on the letterhead of Citi Merchant Services, Provided by First Data Merchant Services Corporation under the "citi" logo of Citigroup Inc., which has licensed First Data to use that logo.
"We hereby provide notice that effective immediately the contract" for this Citi outfit to handle processing of online credit card sales for CDNN Sports "is terminated," Ms. Rivera-Mantilla wrote.
Why?
"We discussed with Mr. Crawford said termination due to the sale of firearms in a non face-to-face environment," the letter says (rather oddly, since it's addressed to Mr. Crawford.) "Keep in mind that a violation of the Gun Control Act occurs when a gun offered online is sold to an individual in another State; the act prohibits selling a handgun to a resident of another state. Shipping across state lines is also banned, yet guns for sale online reach people across the county. We at Citi merchant Service are unable to monitor or track adherence to these Gun Control laws. ..."
OK. They also can't monitor whether a car dealer is selling a new car to a drunk, or whether a tavern is selling me too many beers. Does that mean they refuse to process credit card transactions for car dealers and joints that serve alcohol?
"Should you have any questions please feel free to contact me at 631-683-7734," Ms. Rivera-Mantilla concludes.
I did have some questions. For starters, if "shipping across state lines is also banned," how do all those guns get into the display cases of perfectly legal gun shops in states where they're not manufactured?
So I called the number. I got a recording that told me I couldn't even leave a message. There was an e-mail address: [email protected].
So I e-mailed:
"June Rivera-Mantilla, et al., First Data Merchant Services Corp., Melville, NY
"Hi, Ms. Rivera-Mantilla --
"I'm in receipt of a copy of your letter of Dec. 26 to Charlie Crawford at CDNN Sports in Abilene, canceling your contract for credit-card processing for that firm, based on your assertion that 'A violation of the Gun Control Act occurs when a gun offered online is sold to an individual in another state.' ...
"Your 'Please do not leave messages on this mailbox' message does seem to confirm you know about this, since it goes on to advise 'If you have any concerns or questions about CDNN, please send an e-mail.'
"So I'm writing you. I wonder if you could 1) confirm that this letter is legitimate, 2) tell me if this still reflects your firm's policy and whether you will similarly be refusing to service other licensed firearms dealers engaged in this legal form of commerce, and 3) cite which federal statute you're referring to.
"Keep in mind that it is not a violation of law to sell a gun to a person in another state. I've bought guns from out-of-state federally licensed firearms dealers myself, many times. They demand a copy of the FFL of the gun store to which they are to ship the rifle or handgun. They then ship the weapon across state lines to an FFL holder--a federally licensed gun dealer--here in Nevada. I pick up the gun there, meeting that local dealer 'face-to-face' and fulfilling any and all local and federal requirements concerning background check, etc.
"The BATFE tells us this (no matter how cumbersome, silly, and unconstitutional) is the legal way to get it done. ..."
As of this writing, I've received no response. If Ms. Rivera-Mantilla and company get back to me--or decide to start answering the phone--I'll let you know what they say.
Meantime, this is war. The forces of victim disarmament--apparently including the board of CitiBank, or whatever it's now called--will sidestep no opportunity to make it progressively more difficult and finally impossible for us to exercise our constitutional right to defend ourselves against tyrants and other, less organized criminals.
The commerce against which this outfit seeks to selectively withhold its services is not only legal, it's constitutionally protected.
In 1999, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives estimated private American citizens owned 215 million firearms. Even if the average gun-defended household owns two, that means 100 million Americans continue to exercise the one right on which all our other rights depend.
If one hundred million Americans decide June Rivera-Mantilla and her gang are trying to put law-abiding, federally licensed firearm dealers out of business by lying about the law, by accusing them of violating the law with no evidence from the courts or the BATFE--if those 100 million Americans just decided tomorrow to stop doing business with any outfit that displays that little "citi" logo with the arch across the top--do you suppose they might notice?
I got a piece of junk mail today, from some outfit offering me a low-interest credit card. It had that little "citi" logo printed on it, in red and black. So I threw it away.
Will you?
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the daily Las Vegas Review-Journal and author of the novelThe Black Arrow. See Liberty Book Shop.
