Gun Control Via Our Payments System?

​Barbara, Sorkin's book Too Big To Fail is the most thoughtful work I have read on the financial crisis. He is way off the mark on this suggestion. I can only imagine how this would play out through regulatory oversight. Not only are banks a clumsy arm for law enforcement; but to be blunt the country really lacks any coherent sense of what gun control we really need. I am not going to simply recite NRA talking points, but gun rights defenders (which includes a high proportion of our customer base) make some completely valid points. What gun laws do we want to have that would prevent this? Personally, I would be on board with more control, but I sure would like better clarity than the current hue and cry to "do something about guns".  In any event, I don't want our bank to be an enforcer of laws that are more sentiment than plan. Put me more in the camp of citizens who think this problem of school violence and violence in general merits a much deeper and more painful self examination than our culture is currently doing. No amount of gun control can prevent or paper over the emptiness, despair, anger and anomy so evident in these actions.

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Robert Atwell
Chairman and CEO
Nicolet National Bank
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-20-2018 13:39
From: Barb Rehm
Subject: Gun Control Via Our Payments System?

In his column Tuesday, New York Times DealBook editor, Andrew Ross Sorkin, argues the financial services industry could accomplish what politicians have been unable to do: control the sale of guns in this country.

"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? Collectively, they have more leverage over the gun industry than any lawmaker. And it wouldn't be hard for them to take a stand."

It might not be hard, but would it be wise? Let us know what you think.

 

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Barb Rehm
Promontory Interfinancial Network
Arlington VA
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