A new piece of legislation, the Gun Violence Prevention Through Financial Intelligence Act, is aiming to stop terror by having banks report those buying guns to the federal government. 

What Is This Legislation: The Gun Violence Prevention Through Financial Intelligence Act will require banks to hand over information related to individuals who have recently bought guns, ammunition, and firearm accessories to the federal government. 

Context: This piece of bicameral legislation was introduced by Representatives Madeleine Dean(D-PA) and Jennifer Wexton(D-VA) in the House of Representatives and by Senator Edward Markey in the Senate. 

The legislation was put forward as HR 5764 in the House and as S 3117 in the Senate. 

This bicameral piece of legislation is being championed by the gun control lobby as the only way to stop domestic terrorism and attacks in the public space. 

What Do Supporters Say: Senator Ed Markey said “we cannot allow banks and financial institutions to turn a blind eye as shooters bank a pile of guns and ammunition in lead up to an attack.” The Senator would follow up on that statement by saying “the Gun Violence Prevention Through Financial Intelligence Act will give us the guidance on how these institutions can help pinpoint and prevent gun violence across the country. I am proud to work with Representatives Dean and Wexton in advancing this gun violence prevention legislation.”

This legislation is being backed by every member of the gun control lobby in Washington. Groups like Everytown, March for Our Lives, and Newtown Action Alliance have backed the measure since its proposal. 

John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown, said in a statement that “banks and financial institutions have a key role to play when it comes to identifying the warning signs of gun violence, such as trafficking or stockpiling weapons — but they can’t do this work if they don’t have the right data.”

What Do Critics Say: Critics of the legislation have said that this bill unfairly targets American gun owners and punishes Americans for using their 2nd Amendment rights. 

The trade organization that represents the Firearms industry came out and compared this legislation to the defunct Operation Choke Point proposed by the Obama Administration.  

“This idea of enlisting banks and financial institutions to do the bidding of gun control through ‘woke’ policies isn’t new, but that these lawmakers would take the illegal Operation Choke Point to the next level is a reprehensible assault on America’s financial privacy and Second Amendment rights,” said Mark Oliva, the public affairs director of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Oliva would follow up that statement with “this is a brazen and alarming display of arrogance by these lawmakers to put law-abiding gun owners under an umbrella of suspicion and government monitoring simply for exercising their God-given right to keep and bear arms. This shows the contempt for which gun control groups, and the politicians that do their bidding, have for the very freedoms upon which this nation was founded.”

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