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This is just . . . something I don't get? The data's going to follow a random curve; how can you tell whether a surge is really a surge or just noise? (Not to mention the sale of the gun could take place many months prior to the shooting, or not even take place on traditional finance payment processor networks at all, or the many other problems with this . . .)
I've never really put much stock into the "it's a private company" retort and always considered it a semantic stop sign meant to justify the speaker's position from whole cloth. Just because a company has the legal right to do something doesn't mean that they (morally) should. Ironically enough, this argument is often invoked to dunk on people arguing for freedom of speech, along the lines of "just because you can legally say something doesn't mean that you should". Regardless, as Scott Alexander points out, there's not a meaningful difference between coercion by the state and coercion by private entities, so any debate that focuses on the legal status of the entity carrying out the action in question (except as to answer a strictly legal question) misses the point entirely.
Look, just couple weeks back the US president declared most Republicans to be a 'national security threat'. Obviously a prelude to re-starting the war on Terror but this time against domestic political enemies.
If credit card companies know who buys guns, when things start getting spicy and a gun buyback / ban comes into effect, credit card companies can just start freezing accounts of people who look like they're harboring illegal guns.
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If the stated purpose doesn't make sense, it's likely that the stated purpose is not the actual purpose. It does make sense when government and social pressure previously forced credit card companies to charge vendors higher rates if they sell certain product codes.
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It's an obvious lie. A mass shooter purchasing two guns is just random noise in the great scheme of things. But it's a great way to build a database of gun sales. "Mr. C.G. HLYNKA has spent over $5000 or new firearms last year, here's the list of all people like him, Mr. Cooper".
But I think it's not enough. What the US needs is a switch to electronic receipts. Do you know how much paper is wasted on printed receipts every day? Here's a nice system by the Treasury Department which replaces paper receipts. It's smart enough to cross-reference the data from different shops and payment processors for your convenience: you can give the shop one of your emails, or phone numbers, or just a credit card number, it will recognize it's you and show you all your expenses in a single convenient location.
I have exactly zero desire for such a system for my personal expenses and an exceptionally large negative desire for anyone else to have that data. Personal financial management products are a niche market with most of the growth in things like robo-advisors for investment accounts rather than Mint mobile style phone photo receipt tracking (which even then targets small businesses more than individuals).
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