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Online Payment Firm Stripe Boots 3D Gun Designer Cody Wilson's Companies
SonicSpike writes with this news from Reason magazine: Cody Wilson, famous for making the first usable fully plastic 3D printed handgun and for his new project "Ghost Gunner" which mills metal lower receivers (the milling machine itself is of course not a weapon, and what it makes is not itself legally a weapon) for AR-15s, [informed me Monday] that his online payment processor Stripe has decided that his companies, all of them, qualify as forbidden "weapons and munitions; gunpowder and other explosives" services. This includes the Ghost Gunner and Defense Distributed.
Foisting your politics on your customers, eh? Stripe was one of my favorite services - to the point I never even thought about using any other payment processor. I see that may need to change...
they are entitled to not do business with him, just as im free to not do business with them. a shame too as i was recently recommending them to a few friends of mine, guess I will have to tell them not to use them now.
The only people who lose here are stripe
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The only people who lose here are stripe
You think they lose? Let me introduce you to a little concept called contingent liability. They are making the perfectly sane decision that the potential liability and government scrutiny that could arise from facilitating these payments is not worth it. Honestly I might have made the same decision. Has nothing to do with approving or disapproving of the product being sold. It's simply an actuarial analysis that says the costs outweigh the benefits. They are in business to make money, not to facilitate business models that could cause them legal heartburn later.
Yeah! Screw those paper bills that can't be traced back and gives you anonymity, let's do something illegal with Bitcoins and its wonderful blockchain instead!
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Also the "operation chokepoint "government pressure on bank transactions for businesses that they consider undesirable. that may be the heart of what's going on here.
There is no provision in the U.S. Constitution protecting the civil rights of gays. There is a whole amendment for protecting the civil right to own guns.
Well, people don't like being told that the best way to control their government is to actually go out and meet local candidates for their school boards, city councils, county boards, and even homeowners associations and to actually listen to what those candidates have to say on issues other than abortion, firearms, religion, and sex. That takes too much work. Unfortunately for all of us, the people that start out in school boards, city councils, county boards, and even homeowners associations are the larval form of what become our representatives, senators, governors, and presidents and their cabinets.
I don't think that owning firearms would stop a government from being tyrannical or from attacking the population. I don't think that a lack of firearms in the population would mean that the population can't rise up. For the former, look at Iraq, which is loaded with weapons and had abuse by the government in Baghdad, and for the latter, look at the fall of the Berlin Wall, where the East German Communists didn't have the stomach for shooting tens of thousands of their own people when they interpreted an off-the-cuff comment about easing border controls as freedom to cross now.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Foisting your politics on your customers, eh? Stripe was one of my favorite services - to the point I never even thought about using any other payment processor. I see that may need to change...
Who said it has anything to do with politics? I support gun rights and I probably would have made the same decision. The potential liability and government oversight is simply not worth it. They are making a very sane and reasonable business decision. Just because it conflicts with your political beliefs doesn't mean it is a political decision. They might even share your political beliefs but still have come to the same reasoned business decision that the downside outweighs the upside.
Plus I should point out that you are trying to foist your politics off on Stripe. Why should they be forced to share your political beliefs? Why should they be forced to pick a side?
Animal House was an awesome, irreverent movie that has stood the test of time and become one of *the* classic comedies.
Animal Farm is a dystpoian, allegorical novella about government overreach and oppression, which is what I think you're going after here.
What were you thinking about my post? Where is pot/Kettle?
My Libertarian views are that people should be able to deny service as they see fit. Works equally for Cakes and guns. And for the same reason. It is entirely consistent.
My personal view on Marriage, is that it is none of the government's business, and there should be no laws either supporting or denying status based on marriage. Period.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
The thing about equal protection is, weak groups tend to need a bit more protection then strong ones. Strong groups generally can protect themselves and do not benefit nearly as much from the scraps of help others get.
It is also not a zero sum game. Believe it or not, a society of 300+ million people can both address 2nd amendment issues AND civil rights. The classic argument of 'we shouldn't do anything about XYZ issue I do not care about until ABC issue I do is completely settled!' is just another way of never getting around to XYZ.
This is yet another manifestation of the tactics employed by Obama's Justice Department. Unable to outlaw a particular activity (such as ammunition sales, or escort services — or even cigar-sales) itself, they lean on banks and payment-processors threatening them with audits if they don't stop serving the "undesirable" merchants and services-providers. The name is "Operation Chokepoint" and it has been in the news for a while. About time it made it to Slashdot too.
This — "the most technologically-advanced Administration in history" — is what all the cool kids (not a few /.-ers among them) voted for in 2008 and 2012...
Note, the DoJ is not even alleging any illegality — only "high likelihood" thereof. Nor are they threatening actual prosecution — only an audit. Unfortunately, the audits themselves — even if you end up fully clean at the end — are sufficiently painful and expensive, that banks choose to drop the few clients to avoid the experience.
It is particularly evil, because it is not the result of a prosecution, that is used to cow the victims to comply with the government's whim, but the very process itself. Results, you see, require the Executive to argue its point in front of the skeptical Judiciary. The process, however, can be made very painful without any repercussions — DoJ don't need to prove anything to cause a person or a company as much pain as they please.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.