“We know of no other enumerated constitutional right whose core protection has been subjected to a freestanding ‘interest-balancing’ approach. The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government — even the Third Branch of Government — the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon. A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all.” —Justice Antonin Scalia, referring to the Second Amendment

American leftists are not stupid. They know the likelihood of eliminating Americans’ right to bear arms via the only proper method for doing so — a constitutional amendment requiring the approval of two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and three-fourths of the states’ legislatures — is virtually nil. Yet they also know something else: Substantial numbers of Americans, poisoned by years of indoctrination in a corrupt education system, are more than willing to embrace the Left’s “win by any means necessary” approach to governance.

The New York Times’s Andrew Sorkin sets the stage. “Mass shootings routinely set off a national debate on guns, usually focused on regulating firearms and on troubled youths,” he writes. “Little attention is paid to the financial industry that has become an instrumental, if unwitting, enabler of carnage. A New York Times examination of mass shootings since the Virginia Tech attack in 2007 reveals how credit cards have become a crucial part of the planning of these massacres. There have been 13 shootings that killed 10 or more people in the last decade, and in at least eight of them, the killers financed their attacks using credit cards. Some used credit to acquire firearms they could not otherwise have afforded.”

Sorkin and his fellow travelers envision a world where such credit-providing companies become de facto Big Brothers. And true to their fascist tendencies sold as virtue signaling, entities such as Citigroup and Bank of America have jumped on the bandwagon. Citigroup’s “U.S. Commercial Firearms Policy” prohibits firearms sales to customers who haven’t passed a background check and are younger than 21, and bars the sale of high-capacity magazines. The policy applies to clients who offer Citigroup-backed credit cards, borrow money, use Citigroup’s banking services, or raise capital through the company. And the Times reported last April that Bank of America “will stop lending money to gun manufacturers that make military-inspired firearms for civilian use, such as the AR-15-style rifles that have been used in multiple mass shootings.”

First, “military inspired” is rank propaganda. Moreover, from 1982 through November 2018, the number of mass shootings committed with handguns is more than the number committed by rifles and shotguns combined. Thus what this effort is really all about is expanding the power to “decide on a case-by-case basis” whether the Second Amendment per se is worth “insisting upon.”

In other words, it’s all about the Left’s tried-and-true incrementalist approach, aimed at eliminating the Second Amendment in its entirety.

The key word in Sorkin’s piece? Affordability. As National Review’s David French explains, guns are expensive, and many non-wealthy Americans save up money for a long time before making a purchase. “What’s the level of expense to trigger the proposed system and cause the bank to either decline the transaction or notify law enforcement?” he wonders.

French and other pro-Second Amendment Americans already know the answer: Whatever gun-grabbers decide, and nothing makes this reality clearer than The New York Times. The paper cites eight mass shooters — over the course of a decade — who used credit to purchase weapons and other gear as justification to create a system that would flag millions of law-abiding Americans purchasing the same items to protect their lives and families.

A system of flagging that would create a de facto registry of gun owners.

And if banks, along with business owners who abet them, get their way, the ultimate guy-buyer “work-around,” better known as paying in cash, would also be eliminated. As a recent Wall Street Journal article reveals, increasing numbers of business have stopped taking cash completely, despite the fact that 30% of all transactions, and 55% of those under $10, are still made with it, according to an October 2017 survey of 2,800 people conducted by the Federal Reserve.

Businesses and banks have different reasons for wanting to eliminate cash. Businesses cite reasons like employee safety and efficiency, even as they apparently remain oblivious to the rank elitism and the possibility they remain vulnerable to charges of discrimination made by those who don’t have bank accounts or credit cards, but still possess legal tender. Massachusetts is currently the only state requiring retailers to accept cash, but one suspects other states will follow suit.

As for banks, their motives are far more nefarious. The European Central Bank has been charging negative interest rates for two years, and cash remains the largest impediment to such a contemptible idea. The very same banks American taxpayers (including gun owners) bailed out in 2008 would love nothing better than implementing a similar scenario here. And there is little doubt a debt-addicted ruling class, citing “dire” economic circumstances, would be accommodating, if they could manage the political backlash.

If cash is eliminated, monitoring and controlling gun purchases — and every other transaction made by every American — would be an added “bonus.”

And if one is oblivious enough to think corporate virtue signaling in tandem with complete control over all transactions would be limited to determining which Americans can or cannot buy guns, think again. Want to buy gasoline for that weekend trip to the country? Credit denied, because you’ve exceeded the limits of your personal “carbon footprint.” A six-pack of beer? You’ve exceeded your weekly limit of alcohol, according to federal dietary restrictions. Food? Vegetables and fruits only, until your Body Mass Index reaches the government-approved range.

No cash? No freedom — period.

“Never forget,” French warns, “American corporations often have progressive monocultures, and their elite ranks are often populated by individuals who want to use their considerable power to advance social justice.”

Of course, “social justice” is repackaged totalitarianism — for our own good, no less. Which is exactly why the Founding Fathers created the Second Amendment.