Los Angeles DA asks credit companies for help in ghost gun fight

Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón has asked three major credit card companies to ban online purchases of ghost gun kits by their customers.

"American Express, Mastercard and Visa have the ability to go beyond what any law enforcement agency, legislature or city council can accomplish," Gascón said in a statement. "We are asking these companies to join us in stemming the flow of ghost guns into our communities by preventing a ghost gun kit from being sold with a few mere clicks on a smartphone or computer."

Ghost guns are firearms sold in disassembled kits that can be assembled at home. They are unregistered and lack serial numbers, making them untraceable by law enforcement. The number of ghost guns seized by the Los Angeles Police Department has increased by 400% since 2017, and the trend is accelerating, posing a risk to public safety, Gascón said.

In the letters, sent to executives at American Express, Mastercard and Visa, Gascón asked the companies to show the same "responsible corporate citizenship" they showed when in 2015 they banned transactions to backpage.com after the company was accused of facilitating sex trafficking.

None of the three credit card companies responded to requests for comment by press time Tuesday.

Attorney Theodore F. Monroe, who specializes in e-commerce and laws surrounding credit card processing, said it is hard to know whether the credit card companies will agree to the request but said as the district attorney of one of the largest counties in the country, Gascón has some sway.

Monroe said he would expect challenges from manufacturers and the companies that process those online payments if a ban were to be enacted.

"This is an attempt by the district attorney to interfere with lawful businesses that he doesn't like. The difference between Backpage and these merchants is that Backpage was engaged in illegal activity," he said.

But these kits may not be legal much longer in California. Last year, the Legislature enacted changes to the penal code that will require in July all precursor firearm parts be sold in person by licensed firearm dealers.

Gascón in his letters to the credit card companies argued the law change comes too late and neither addresses the "rapid, ongoing and current proliferation of these weapons" nor stops kits from being brought from out of state.

If the credit card companies decide to follow Gascón's request to stop online payments for the purchase of ghost gun kits, a Second Amendment legal challenge would likely be unsuccessful, UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh said in an interview.

"You might say credit card transactions are so important to people's ability to buy guns that urging credit card companies to refuse to handle those transactions will just materially interfere with people's abilities to get guns, but urging credit card companies to restrict transactions to manufacturers of gun kits doesn't materially interfere with law-abiding adults ability to get guns," Volokh said.

"This having been said, I think we all have to feel kind of uneasy when these fundamental intermediaries start picking and choosing essentially, which businesses they're going to block transactions with," he continued. "They have this tremendous economic power, but we don't want them to use that economic power ... to become our new guardians, trying to protect us from things that the government for whatever reason concludes [it] is unable to protect us from."

Monroe echoed those sentiments, adding deplatforming has become a big issue in the payments world with companies being pressured on who and what companies they conduct business with, particularly companies that process online payments.

Gascón's letters are part of a recent push in the state by prosecutors and legislators to address the prevalence of ghost guns and their impact on public safety.

In December, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he would use the Texas abortion law that allows private citizens to sue doctors, who perform abortions as inspiration for a law that would allow private citizens to sue ghost gun manufacturers and sellers.

Similarly, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin last year tried to curb the online sale of ghost gun kits by suing retailers and manufacturers for allegedly engaging in unlawful and unfair business practices by evading federal and state gun laws.