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For Gun Shop Owners, It's No Longer Hip to Be 'Square'
Jennifer Kerns
'A small credit card reader that offers big possibilities."
Jennifer Kerns/ <broken link removed>
Jennifer Kerns was the communications strategist for the Colorado recalls. She previously worked for the California Republican Party and served as spokeswoman for the Proposition 8 marriage initiative.
It's white. It's square. And at 1-by-1 inch in diameter, it is the perfect accoutrement to any entrepreneur's smartphone.
With its quick swipe capability and ultimate portability, the high-tech Square Reader credit-card processor has become an invaluable tool in today's economy.
How high-tech credit card vendors and customers get their Second Amendment rights infringed.
Taxi drivers use it—as do trade-show vendors, online retailers and home contractors.
It is, as the company's slogan says, a "small credit card reader" that offers "big possibilities." But some of those big possibilities are apparently being foreclosed by the Obama administration.
Last summer, around the same time the U.S. Department of Justice's Operation Choke Point began pressuring banks to drop customers who buy or sell firearms, tobacco and other goods considered "not acceptable" by the Obama administration, Square quietly changed its terms of agreement.
>>> Meet Four Business Owners Squeezed by Operation Choke Point
In an alert regarding a change of terms, Square notified vendors:
Jennifer Kerns
'A small credit card reader that offers big possibilities."
Jennifer Kerns/ <broken link removed>
Jennifer Kerns was the communications strategist for the Colorado recalls. She previously worked for the California Republican Party and served as spokeswoman for the Proposition 8 marriage initiative.
It's white. It's square. And at 1-by-1 inch in diameter, it is the perfect accoutrement to any entrepreneur's smartphone.
With its quick swipe capability and ultimate portability, the high-tech Square Reader credit-card processor has become an invaluable tool in today's economy.
How high-tech credit card vendors and customers get their Second Amendment rights infringed.
Taxi drivers use it—as do trade-show vendors, online retailers and home contractors.
It is, as the company's slogan says, a "small credit card reader" that offers "big possibilities." But some of those big possibilities are apparently being foreclosed by the Obama administration.
Last summer, around the same time the U.S. Department of Justice's Operation Choke Point began pressuring banks to drop customers who buy or sell firearms, tobacco and other goods considered "not acceptable" by the Obama administration, Square quietly changed its terms of agreement.
>>> Meet Four Business Owners Squeezed by Operation Choke Point
In an alert regarding a change of terms, Square notified vendors:
…you will not accept payments in connection with the following businesses or business activities: …sales of (i) firearms, firearm parts or hardware, and ammunition; or (ii) weapons and other devices designed to cause physical injury.
The new terms differ from Square's original terms of agreement, which banned only the "online" sales of firearms, a practice for which sites such as the popular eBay have long been criticized. (Square's terms, by the way, also prohibit the online sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products—goods that also are targeted by Operation Choke Point.)
Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Today, the Square's terms prohibit gun-shop owners from using the credit-card processor not only when they are conducting gun sales at their brick-and-mortar stores but even more so when they are offsite, representing their stores at gun shows where they often need the wireless Square Reader to ring up sales on smartphones or tablets. Gun show have been a target of anti-gun activists for nearly 20 years
The new terms differ from Square's original terms of agreement, which banned only the "online" sales of firearms, a practice for which sites such as the popular eBay have long been criticized. (Square's terms, by the way, also prohibit the online sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products—goods that also are targeted by Operation Choke Point.)
Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Today, the Square's terms prohibit gun-shop owners from using the credit-card processor not only when they are conducting gun sales at their brick-and-mortar stores but even more so when they are offsite, representing their stores at gun shows where they often need the wireless Square Reader to ring up sales on smartphones or tablets. Gun show have been a target of anti-gun activists for nearly 20 years
