It doesn’t really bother me when gun nuts or gun-control advocates mis-state laws that we use to regulate guns. After all, these people either like guns or don’t like guns, no matter what the laws say.

            But when members of the United States Congress make public statements about gun laws or any laws, statements which happen to be wrong, or don’t mean what these public figures believe they mean, then we have a problem which needs to be fixed.

            I’m not talking about idiots like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert or Matt Gaetz. They’ll say anything no matter how stupid they sound. I’m talking about a letter that eighteen Democratic members of Congress just sent to the guy who runs an outfit called Credova Financial, a company which partners with gun dealers and provides buy now, pay later (BNPL) plans for the purchase of guns.

            To quote the letter, “BNPL is a point-of-sale loan product allowing consumers to purchase and immediately take possession of an item after agreeing to pay the purchase price over a fixed period of time.” Such financing plans evidently find favor with younger buyers who either don’t yet have a credit history or are trying to avoid any credit card debt.

            Many BNPL companies explicitly prohibit their programs being used for the purchase of guns, but Credova has gone in the opposite direction and has basically built its entire funding operation by partnering with gun dealers who sell guns either in retail shops or online.

            One of the companies which partners with Credova is Daniel Defense, which manufactures assault rifles, including the gun that was used in the Uvalde massacre, as well as the gun that was used in the July 4^th mass assault in Highland Park, IL.

            The letter from the Congressional group to Credova asked the company to answer 15 questions about its business practices, of which the first 6 questions asked what procedures did the company followed to keep guns from being bought or being used by customers who then either might traffic the gun to someone else, or might use the gun to commit an assault or another kind of crime.

            Nowhere in this letter is it mentioned that every, single gun whose purchase is funded by Credova is only transferred to the consumer by a federally licensed gun dealer who is required under law not only to conduct a background check administered by the FBI but is also – ready? – responsible for halting the transfer if the dealer believes that the individual buying the gun may use it in a criminal or harmful way. 

            Here’s the relevant statement from the instructions that go with the form which is used to transact the background check: “WARNING: Any seller who transfers a firearm to any person they know or have reasonable cause to believe is prohibited from receiving or possessing a firearm violates the law, even if the seller has complied with the background check.” requirements of the Brady law.”

            Has the ATF ever published guidelines to help gun dealers figure out whether someone who walks into the gun shop should or should not be legally entitled to ‘possess’ a gun? As the Spanish would say, ‘ni palabra ni pÍo,’ which translated figuratively means not one bit.

            But the point is that asking Credova to monitor the behavior of someone who uses their BNPL plan is like asking Visa to check how long it takes me to wolf down a bag of their potato chips.

            Incidentally, talking about Visa, the letter to Cordova also states data from a market research company, IBIS, which says that online gun sales will reach $2.6 billion by 2026, a number which is about as believable as the number of Martians now living at Area 51. But I’ll deal with that issue in a separate column later this week.

            Let me make one thing very clear. I’m not a fan of assault rifles and I certainly have no reason to promote either Credova’s financing of gun sales or the business activities of Daniel Defense.

            But if my friends in Gun-control Nation want to support meaningful initiatives to reduce gun violence, they need to get their facts and their arguments straight.

            They certainly didn’t do it this time around.