Banks Are Devising Ways to ID Mass Shooters Before They Strike

Discussion in 'Current Events' started by HurricaneDitka, Nov 30, 2022.

  1. Alwayssa

    Alwayssa Well-Known Member

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    I don't think this is dealing with gun restrictions, but even the CRPA will not want to give a firearm to a schizophrenic with violent tendencies.
     
  2. WhoDatPhan78

    WhoDatPhan78 Banned

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    A bank can't violate the 2nd amendment.
     
  3. RodB

    RodB Well-Known Member Donor

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    All well and good, but it is a posteriori. Psychiatry say detecting a mass shooter a priori is virtually impossible.
     
  4. ricmortis

    ricmortis Well-Known Member

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    I have run across many psychotic people over the years. None of them became mass shooters.

    By classifying anyone as a potential mass shooter just may flag hundreds of thousands of people. That should be against any legal freedoms many have.

    Heck, all those crazies going around attacking innocent bystanders in New York would be flagged as potential mass shooters being if they had a gun they probably would shoot someone.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2022
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  5. Reality

    Reality Well-Known Member

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    I already do that just on general principles, but the idea is that you shouldn't be forced to comply with an unconstitutional measure because compliance costs no matter how cheap or easy, are irreparable constitutional harms. Any law mandating this would be unconstitutional. Banks doing it on their own might skate, but since they're unduly effecting interstate commerce and punishing people for political speech, as well as essentially defaming them by saying they're insane, it might not.
     
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  6. HurricaneDitka

    HurricaneDitka Well-Known Member

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    Banks won't have any way of knowing which of their customers are "a loner, misunderstood, perhaps bullied, has domestic family violence that they are a victim of," etc. That's my point: someone's significant other may be in a position to give law enforcement a heads up that someone is acting strangely, talking about hurting themselves or others, recently started acquiring weapons, took an interest in manufacturing explosives, etc, but that person's bank won't know any of that stuff. The idea that banks are going to be able to ID mass shooters before they strike is absurd. They simply don't have access to the data they'd need to do that with any degree of accuracy. At most, the banks are going to report to the Treasury Department many millions of perfectly-lawful purchases.
     
  7. HurricaneDitka

    HurricaneDitka Well-Known Member

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    If they were denying purchases at the behest of / under pressure from the government, that would (probably) be seen by the courts as a violation of the citizen's right to keep and bear arms.

    See Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2022
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  8. WhoDatPhan78

    WhoDatPhan78 Banned

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    No evidence suggests this is the case.
     
  9. Alwayssa

    Alwayssa Well-Known Member

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    We are predictable when it comes to spending and saving. So there are ways that can work too. This is really reverse engineering of forensic accounting.

    If I analyzed three years of your bank and credit card statements, I can relatively predict what you like to eat, when you eat, etc. Same thing with purchases no matter what they are. If you use your credit card to purchase certain items on a regular basis, I will guarantee you that credit card company will advertise to you about making similar purchases in that category.

    So, unless there is a reason, such as a person with an FTL license who purchases firearms once a week using their bank account and paying for it, along with bullets now, and has not done so in the history of the account, then question marks are coming. One is whether the purchase is legitimate or not. That is was the card stolen or being misused without proper authorization? If it is being used by the owner, why the sudden increase in the spending pattern? For legitimate or nefarious reasons. And since banks do have access to your PII data in ways you don't yet comprehend, then they may be able to deny purchases based on suspected fraudulent activity. Or they could notify law enforcement of suspicious activity. And that is the extent of what they are going to do.
     
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  10. Alwayssa

    Alwayssa Well-Known Member

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    Most mass shooters are not pyschotic. Most mass serial killers are psychotic and have no remorse in what they have done such as BLK or Son of Sam or a few others.
     
  11. ricmortis

    ricmortis Well-Known Member

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    I am sorry but anyone who goes around shooting people is most definitely psychotic.
     
  12. HurricaneDitka

    HurricaneDitka Well-Known Member

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    And that doesn't come within a country mile of "IDing mass shooters before they strike". That's my point. Priscilla Sims Brown and Amalgamated Bank probably have enough data to distinguish regular FFL customers from new or one-time customers, but that's nowhere near beginning to accurately identify mass shooters. They don't know if it's a wife buying a gift for a husband / son, someone who recently took up some shooting sport hobby, or a real serious threat. So what can they do? They could report all of them to law enforcement, and what's law enforcement going to do with these junk reports of most every new gun store customer? For the most part, they're going to ignore them, because they're useless. And in some blue states, some legislators may get a bee in their bonnet about these SARs and require law enforcement to "follow up" on them, which will end up 999,999 times out of 1,000,000 being cops wasting huge amounts of their time and harassing perfectly innocent customers for doing something that's perfectly legal, which I'd contend is the real intent here: to hassle lawful gun owners.
     
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  13. HurricaneDitka

    HurricaneDitka Well-Known Member

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    It's not yet the case because this is all still the very early stages of the process. AFAIK, Amalgamated Bank hasn't yet started filing SARs for gun store purchases. They're signaling their intent to start doing that in the future.
     
  14. balancing act

    balancing act Well-Known Member

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    That's sort of creepy.
     
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  15. Quantum Nerd

    Quantum Nerd Well-Known Member

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    I agree with this. Banks and credit card companies are very good at detecting fraudulent activity, by noticing purchasing patterns that deviate from the regular patterns of the account holder. I doubt that people would be opposed to the bank alerting them about this fraudulent behavior, even though this requires an intrusion into their privacy. Now, if someone has never bought anything firearm related in their whole life, and then within one week stocks up on AR15s, ammo and a bullet proof vest, I'd say that's a red flag. I'd be happy to see authorities checking something like this out, there might be nothing to it, or it might prevent a mass shooting. It is no different than teachers raising alarm about red flag behavior of a potentially violent student.
     
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  16. UntilNextTime

    UntilNextTime Well-Known Member

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    What then?
    When you have a nation of people, the majority are sane and law-abiding citizens along with the constitutional "right to bear arms", against enemies foreign and domestic. So all you will have that are armed are IRS, military, compromised police and criminals. Yep, you can just verbally abuse them as well as throw sticks and stones to throw at them.
     
  17. HurricaneDitka

    HurricaneDitka Well-Known Member

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    The first problem is that the banks don't know what was purchased. They only know that someone spent $x,xxx.xx at 'Sam's Guns and Gear' (or whatever the retailer is). They don't know if the customer were buying pistols or an AR or a shotgun or just a really nice scope for Grandpa's old hunting rifle to gift to a grandson who was coming of age. They don't know if it's a parent of a lonely high-schooler or a woman who is frightened that a violent ex is going to harm her. So what choice do they have? The can file SARs for every gun store purchase, or every one above a certain amount, or every gun store purchase from a first time customer. But that's the problem: that's like throwing the whole haystack at law enforcement and saying "we think there's a needle in there somewhere, maybe. Good luck." It's useless junk data.

    The second problem is that there's WAY too much volume for law enforcement to do any appreciable level of "checking on" each transaction. There are more than a million completed NICS checks each month. That's just for firearms. Banks won't know which purchases are for firearms and which are for ammo or other accessories. It's likely that the banks have records of multiple millions of gun retailer transactions happening each month. Even if they filter out the repeat customers, they are still going to be reporting on many thousands of law-abiding citizens making perfectly lawful purchases for any single one that might turn out to be a mass shooter. If you were the police chief of a department, how many man-hours would you want your department to spend investigating / "following up on" lawful retail purchases each month? Half of them? Should they de-prioritize criminal investigations or patrol activities in order to investigate each lawful purpose?
     
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  18. BuckyBadger

    BuckyBadger Well-Known Member

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    I can't even fathom the thought process behind posting this. ANYBODY who goes around shooting people is most definitely psychotic.

    Of course you do. No doubt in my mind about that.
     
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  19. HurricaneDitka

    HurricaneDitka Well-Known Member

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    They're not that good at it. In my own personal life, I've had credit card companies both allow fraudulent purchases that they should have blocked and flag and place a hold on legitimate non-fraudulent transactions that I initiated. I suspect most people have had one or both of those same experiences when dealing with credit card companies.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2022
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  20. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    if we got rid of the bad cops, I would agree, too many times cops go to investigate something like this and an innocent person dies

    if a cop sees someone with a gun, it's a license to kill them pretty much

    I bet even the right would take a knee against bad cops if this were allowed though
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2022
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  21. Alwayssa

    Alwayssa Well-Known Member

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    Banks are required by federal law to do this under the FATCA Act, among other things. But this is mostly for international transactions and to some extent domestic transactions.
     
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  22. Alwayssa

    Alwayssa Well-Known Member

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    There are thresholds that get through the cracks, but large, unexpected purchases is where they focus. If you have a $10k Credit Line and an international transaction occurred that was charging you $79999.99, the Bank will definitely catch that. But if they charge $1.99, they usually don't because of your credit line amount. And when it comes to purchasing firearms, we are not talking about a $1.99 purchase here.
     
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  23. Alwayssa

    Alwayssa Well-Known Member

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    Do you understand the definition of psychotic? Most mass shooters are "acting out" so to speak because they are getting revenge, etc. That is not the definition of being psychotic. A majority are not suffering a psychosis even if they may have some history of mental illness. Having a mental illness does not always equate to psychosis or psychotic.
     
  24. Alwayssa

    Alwayssa Well-Known Member

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    If you can predict who is purchasing, then yes you can id the person involved as well. ID is the final step. The first step is to identify the factors involved. And since you need to provide your name, ID, address, etc to the bank account, even if you are using a fictitious business. Of all the private entities, the financial institutions have the most on you in terms of spending habits, identity, and predictability. Not even Twitter and social media companies can come that close.
     
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  25. cd8ed

    cd8ed Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Can you explain how a private company tracking information is a violation of the Constitution?
     
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