Axios morning email thingie has an intriguing storyline from Andrew Ross Sorkin at the NYTimes:

• The gist: The idea is for the finance industry to effectively set new rules for the sales of guns in America.
• The backdrop: “For the past year, chief executives have often talked about the new sense of moral responsibility that corporations have to help their communities and confront social challenges even when Washington won’t.”
• Sorkin’s idea: “What if the finance industry — credit card companies … credit card processors … and banks … — were to effectively set new rules for the sales of guns in America?”
• The companies could change their “terms of service to say that it won’t do business with retailers that sell assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and bump stocks.”
• Why it matters: “Collectively, they have more leverage over the gun industry than any lawmaker. And it wouldn’t be hard for them to take a stand.”
• What’s next: “I spent the last 72 hours calling and emailing a handful of chief executives to discuss these ideas. … [S]ome said they had already been thinking about it. A few … called their peers to begin a conversation.”

Of course, it would push gun sales into a cash-and-carry untraceable situation, but we kinda have that already. I don’t know what guns cost (and I suppose I could Google it, but I don’t want it in my dossier when Hair Führer comes for me) and if guns are so expensive that they would require financing.

And yesterday I saw a gun post from Dan Savage at The Stranger that I thought was intriguing, too:

“…Whenever there’s a mass shooting—which is defined as any shooting with four or more victims—every gun shop in the country has to close its doors for a month and all trading of stocks in gun manufacturers is suspended for three months. Because if it’s too soon to talk about gun control in the days and weeks after a mass shooting, it’s too soon to sell guns and too soon to buy stock in gun manufacturers. If it’s too soon to talk about gun violence, it’s too soon to profit off gun violence.”

I like that idea, and we could call it the Thoughts and Prayers Act.

I think that there is something here in both these ideas, as it is not regulating guns, it is regulating sellers. And that is something I think we can do.

I also think gun owners should have a license (like driving a car) and that they must carry insurance, and we know what kind of rates those bastards would charge. Republicans love market-based solutions, so let’s give ’em some.

crossposted from Mock Paper Scissors