 All right, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the City Hall Rotunda. I'm proud to join Mayor Adams, Attorney General James, Public Advocate Jumani Williams, State Senator of Elnir Myrie, Assemblymember Chantel Jackson, Board of Education Retirement System, Trustee Donald Nesbitt, as well as other legislators and pension fund fiduciaries across the country to take important steps to combat gun violence. As we see far too frequently, gun violence continues to ravage communities here in New York City and all across the country. It is the responsibility of all of us to use all the tools at our disposal to address it. That includes taking steps to make it easier for law enforcement to keep track of suspicious activities and purchases of firearms and ammunition that may be used for criminal purposes. Now today, the Mayor, Jumani and I, Donald, along with labor representatives of three of our city's pension funds, the Teachers Retirement System, New York City Employees Retirement System, or NYSERS, and the Board of Education Retirement System, are taking action in our capacity as the trustees of those funds. Those three funds have large investment holdings in MasterCard 347. Leave the baby. Yeah, TJ is part of the press conference. Leave the baby. No, no. TJ is an important part of the presser, exactly. Auntie Tish came. He wants to talk. TJ, are you getting ready to speak? The three pension funds I mentioned, TRS, NYSERS, and BERS, own substantial positions in the credit card companies we're talking about today. $347 million in MasterCard, $92 million in American Express, and $363 million at Visa. As fiduciaries, which is how we're acting today, we've got a responsibility to minimize the risk of harm that could negatively impact the companies in our portfolios. Now, one simple, practical step that these three companies could take is to support the creation of what's called a merchant category code or MCC for standalone gun stores. Credit card companies use a four-digit merchant category code to classify businesses by the types of goods and services sold. And this is standard across the economy. There are merchant category codes for grocery stores, for sporting goods stores, for bike shops, and many other retailers. But as of today, not for gun and ammunition stores. And this can make a big difference. The Aurora Movie Theater Shooter used a MasterCard to purchase $11,000 worth of weapons and military gear in the six weeks leading up to the shooting, including from standalone gun stores. And the Pulse Shooter, who killed 49 people, also used a MasterCard to purchase more than $26,000 in firearms and ammunition, including from standalone gun stores. These merchant category codes are set by an organization called the International Organization for Standardization, or ISO. And that happens through a vote that includes the credit card companies. Amalgamated Bank, who you're going to hear from later today, brought a proposal last year and are bringing a proposal again to the ISO to create a merchant category code for standalone gun stores. Unfortunately, MasterCard, American Express, and Visa have failed to support this simple, practical, life-saving tool, and the time has come for them to do so. That's why the three pension funds that I mentioned here today, along with CalSTRS, California Teachers Retirement System, took action this week to urge the credit card companies we invest in to share why they have not supported the creation of merchant category codes, and that is why they have not forced standalone gun stores and joined others in urging them to do so. That's why the legislators who are here today, Senator Myrie and Assemblymember Jackson, have organized a broad letter in support and started to have dialogue with those companies that you'll hear about. We are united here to urge credit card companies to get on board with this simple, practical step to prevent gun violence and to save lives. It's now my pleasure to introduce Mayor Eric Adams. As you know, Mayor Adams is a fourth-right champion for action to reduce gun violence. You've seen him do that in many different roles. As a police officer, as a state senator, as a borough president, as mayor, as a Met Gala attendee. But I think it may be that today is the first time that he's taking action to prevent gun violence in his role as a pension fund, trustee. Mayor Adams. Was it intentional that I was standing to the right of you? You know, and having Assemblywoman Jackson, Selna Myrie, who's just continued to produce some smart good-thinking legislation, and the AG. AG has rolled out a countless number of pieces of legislation, partnered together around ghost guns, partnered together around holding manufacturers accountable. It's just real partnership here and Jimani. Jimani, throughout the years, we have, basically, we have come together around dealing with the over-proliferation of guns. And you don't have to agree on everything to agree on the fact that we have to be safe. The over-proliferation of guns, the brewing decision, the failure of gun manufacturers, and now even as the controllers has discovered the role that credit card companies could play. We do it for, if someone purchases fertilizer, you know, there are notifications that are made. And we have this code when you purchase other items. Why can't we have this code when you purchase guns? This is a real issue. 316 people a day are shot by guns in our city, our country, 106 die from guns. I mean, when you think about these numbers, these are astronomical numbers. And I say it over and over again, we have to dam every river that feeds the sea of violence. We are continuously damning those rivers in government. We have allowed manufacturers and those who allow cash to go into companies, they must be part of the damning process as well. We are not leaving any stone unturned. Everyone must play a role in damning the rivers that are leading to the gun violence we're seeing in the city and in this entire country. And so I'm happy to be here with our partners. Senator Cavanaugh joined us as well. I'm happy to be here with our partners. And I want to thank you, Controller and the entire team here who brought this together and using our pension dollars to ensure that it is helping lives and not destroying lives. This is the responsibility that we have and that creativity that we're bringing today is so important. So thank you. Thank you, Controller. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. We've got a great team of people here playing a lot of different roles in working to get this merchant category code established and persuading the credit card companies to support it. So I'll point out as we go, who are trustees joining in the shareholder resolution and who are taking other steps along the way to build and strengthen the support to make it happen. We are lucky in this state, as the mayor said, to have an attorney general who has long been a fierce advocate for keeping communities safe and has been at the forefront of the fight against gun violence as long as I have been fortunate to know her and who it's worth remembering in some ways came into this building for the first time in the wake of an act of gun violence and has never forgotten that as she stood up for New Yorkers across the city and the state. And we're delighted to have her here today. Thank you, Attorney General James. Thank you. Thank you. Let's recognize again the late James Davis who died in this building. And as was mentioned as a result of his death, all of us have attended collectively together too many funerals. I can remember when then captain of my precinct, Eric Adams, we've attended a number of funerals as long as the public advocate and the controller and the senator and the assembly member and the senator as well. All of us, all of us have held too many mothers and grandmothers and grandfathers and fathers over open caskets and all of us have been involved in addressing this issue. As the public advocate of the city of New York, back in 2016, I urged the banks not purchase any guns. I also as a member of this pension board urged that we divest from guns back in 2016. I did not have the partnership that we are witnessing here today. And so I want to applaud the controller. I want to applaud the public advocate. I want to applaud Senator Myrie and Assemblywoman Jackson and the senator as well. All of them for coming here today to address this issue. And I want to thank the mayor of the city of New York who has joined me in litigation in suing ghost gun manufacturers. I want to thank law enforcement as we've engaged in a number of takedowns all across the state of individuals who have been trafficking in guns. And again, I want to thank members of the legislature for all of my proposals. Whether, you know, the financial institutions must have some skin in the game in keeping communities safe from gun violence. And I want to thank all of my colleagues here today, but I specifically want to thank Amalgamated Bank under the leadership of Priscilla Sims Brown. Who mentioned to me who approached me about this a few days ago. And she indicated to me that she filed a petition before the ISO and her petition was denied. She had asked that this merchant category be in place because every other business transaction has a merchant category and gun manufacturers need a unique category. She appealed the decision and it was denied again. And it was denied again by the same credit card companies, obviously who do not want to create this credit, this merchant category code. This organization basically set standards by creating new merchant categories for gun manufacturers and for ammunition stores. And again, I really want to thank Priscilla Sims Brown for her leadership. Whether you're getting a car repair, whether or not you attend a nail salon, whether or not you get your shoe shined, whether or not you go to the hair salon. Every business tracks credit card transactions in this nation. And so I don't think it would be difficult to create a unique merchant code that reports a purchase for a gun manufacturer, for a gun in this country. We do it for every other business except firearms, every other business except firearms. Establishing these category codes on gun and ammunition purchases is a basic and common sense step that would help prevent a future mass shooting or reduce the risk of gun trafficking. It's important to know, as was mentioned, a 2016 report, 2018 report in the New York Times highlighted that the shooter at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando spent tens of thousands of dollars on multiple guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition. In the days before he carried out that shooting, a shooting that claimed 49 lives. In the months before the shooting, the shooter opened six new credit cards. Twelve days before he spent more than $26,000 on assault weapons, other guns, and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Before that time, he had only one credit card and spent an average of only $1,500 a month. After the shooting in Aurora, Colorado, a similar picture emerged. The shooter opened a credit card and spent more than $11,000 on guns and ammo and other weapons within a few short weeks. We saw that same image after the shooting in Las Vegas and so many more. In fact, at the time of the report in 2018, the shooters in at least eight of 13 mass shootings that killed 10 people or more in the precious decade used credit cards to purchase their firearm and their ammo. If tracking these codes could stop just one mass shooting or derail one gun trafficker aiming to flood the streets with guns, it would be worth it. And that's why my office is working with other attorney generals and we will also join my colleagues here in New York City to urge credit card companies to take this critical action to save lives. I've reached out to my colleague in California, Rob Bonta, and he and I will lead the charge. Just as the elected officials are leading the charge here in New York, we're going to again hold hands all across this nation and stand up against gun violence. We're thinking proactively and we're also not only thinking proactively in terms of credit cards and financial institutions but are on the street making sure that this is a law enforcement effort and telling individuals all throughout the city and all throughout the state that violence is not the answer. And that if in fact you commit violence anywhere in this state, this law enforcement officer joining with my colleagues will come after you. Thank you. Thank you very much attorney general. The attorney general mentioned Amalgamated Bank and you're going to hear in a few minutes from First Vice President Mora Keeney and also Mora Keeney and also from Igor Golovsky, excuse me from guns down America who have been working on this campaign for a while. First you're going to hear from a couple other more elected officials and pension fund trustees. Public Advocate Jamani Williams and I have spent many time working together on issues of safety and usually when he introduces me as his partner in safety, he's the one that is first leading at the podium and I appreciate the way that he often does that. So today it is my pleasure to introduce you to a trustee of the New York City employees retirement system and my partner in safety Public Advocate Jamani Williams. Thank you so much, Brad. I'm hoping the media gets this and shows New Yorkers all of us up here. I think it is important for New Yorkers to see their leaders working together, even if there's some differences, but agreeing that we all need to be safe. We have the three city-wide elected officials here, the mayor, myself, the comptroller, we have the attorney general here. We have state legislatures who have been writing letters and supporting this for quite some time. There are things moving to try to get this to happen and I implore the media to get that message out as well, that we are standing together to keep all New Yorkers safe. The United States of America makes up 4% of the world's population. We own over half of all civilian guns in the world and we have a uniquely American gun problem. As was mentioned, you can go anywhere and have a merchant code. If I go to dinner with my family tonight, they will give me a merchant code. As a matter of fact, they'll probably figure out whether I took it out or I sat in. That's the level that we have. A gun is only designed to kill main destroyed flesh. That is all the gun is used for. Last year, we broke records on how many Americans were shot and killed. We are going to see more people dying by gun violence than traffic and cars are only made to bring you to and fro. But there's more regulation, more things to cover that than a gun that is only designed to kill. And all of us I know have probably forgot how many funerals we've gone to over the past years. I've been to too many. I've been to funerals of people who've been shot by civilians who were civilians themselves. I've seen been to funerals of people who've been shot by police. I've been to funerals of police officers who were shot by civilians. Their pain looked remarkably the same. And guns make everything worse from domestic violence to hate. Yet we have to struggle just to find a way to regulate this better. And I always talk about this as demand and supply. We've done a lot of conversation of trying to prevent the use of gun once it's here. What's causing the person to pick up the gun in the first place. And we have to do that preventative and accountability. But we will be remiss, remiss if we did not discuss the guns coming in in the first place. There are no guns built in Brooklyn, in the city, at all in New York. There are no guns built here. They are coming in from other places. And I have to ask the credit card companies themselves, why would you not want to do this? It's preventative and it holds people accountable. What can you tell us as why you wouldn't do this when you do it everywhere else except for the thing that causes death and carnage? This can help track so much the mass shootings as was discussed because there was a pattern in what people generally by leading up to it. I don't want to leave up the handgun violence that is killing black and brown people every single day in this city and this state and this country. What we've seen as gun dealers, quote unquote, lose handguns all of the time, buy them again, lose them again, buy them again. This can also help us track that. We have to use every tool in the toolbox to protect everyone. And so I want to remind folks that we always talk about legal and illegal guns. I'm here to remind you that every illegal gun was legal at some point in this country. And we have to remember that. And we have to do all that we can to stop the over-proliferation of guns in our cities, in our states, and in our countries. We have to do everything. I expect our Republican colleagues to jump on this accountability and preventative measure. So I'm thankful for the leadership of the Comptroller, of the Mayor, of Amalgamator, of Guns Down America, of everyone who's here, of my colleagues, the AG, the state senators, the assembly member for the work that they're doing. I'm pleading with everyone because America is bleeding out. That's what's happening. And it's unique to this country, in my opinion, because our demonic obsession with guns. But if there's something that we can do right now that is preventative, that holds people accountable, and that simply aligns to what companies are doing anyway, why would you not do it? And I'm happy to be part of a group of folks in the city that are leading on this. Thank you. Bookstores have a merchant category code. Nail salons have a merchant category code. Bike shops have a merchant category code. It's a long, long list. As the public advocate said, we've got a great coalition of all the city-wide elected officials. We're also joined by some of our state elected officials who moved very quickly earlier this summer to make sure that our laws were strengthened in response to the Supreme Court decision and who have organized a letter of dozens of their colleagues to these credit card companies, urging them to take this common sense and life-saving step. So I'm going to ask State Senator Zellner Myrie, Assemblymember Shantel Jackson, who organized the letter and State Senator Brian Kavanaugh, another longtime leader in the fight against gun violence to come and speak. Thank you. Let me first thank Comptroller Lander, Mayor Adams, Attorney General James, and William's all, by the way, graduates of the King's County School of Politics and Public Service. And of course to my colleague Shantel Jackson, her and I co-chair the caucuses subcommittee on anti-gun violence and Senator Kavanaugh, who I've worked very closely with and who has done amazing work on this for quite some time. The question today for me is very simple. How much is a life worth? You've heard from so many of my colleagues, we've attended one too many funerals and sometimes those funerals are of our babies, our children. And so my question is how much is that child's life worth? Is it worth the flowers that we have to put on the casket? Because guess what, florists have a merchant category code. Is it worth the casket that we have to put them in? Because guess what, funeral services have a merchant category code. Is it worth the suits and the dresses that we have to wear to the funerals? Because men and women clothing stores have a merchant category code. Kids who will never have a first day of school anymore. Can never buy school supplies anymore. Is it worth those school supplies? Because guess what, school supply stores have merchant category codes. Is it worth the chairs that you sit in in your corporate offices, making these decisions? Furniture stores, merchant category codes. Is it worth the jewelry that you wear? Jewelry stores, merchant category codes. You get the point, we are at a pivotal time in this country and it calls for dignified and courageous action. And 10 years from now, when your children and your grandchildren are asking you, what did you do to end gun violence? What will your answer be? Would it be we try to avoid the politics of the day that we were succumbing to the pressure and we would make it too controversial? I challenge you, step up in this moment. Be courageous, take the right step and let's end this scourge together. Thank you. I mean everything is pretty much said. I'm Assemblymember Chantel Jackson. You guys have gotten to meet my son TJ and he is sporting with his Jordans a shirt that says guns down life up because we work really hard to prevent gun violence here in our city and our state. And I just have to say thank you to everyone who pulled this together, but we are just at the beginning of this because we are urging our credit card companies to take action. See, what happens is people are going to, I'm going to go back to my district and they're going to say, well, what did you do to prevent gun violence? And I can tell them about the legislation that we did this year, how I was, how I brought the bill forward to make sure you have to be 21 years old and have a license to have a firearm, right? I can talk about that, but how did that affect my constituent Brandon Hendricks? Because the gun that he was killed with was bought illegally, right? So what I want to urge everyone is that, yes, it affects me and the South Bronx and my constituents in the South Bronx because that illegal gun was once legal like my brother Zell Normaree just said. And we're asking for credit card companies to be accountable just like we are being accountable for every part of this gun violence battle. So simple, real simple. You already heard it. We already have categories for everything else. Why is this place in miscellaneous? Why? When we're talking about lives here. So we're asking our credit card companies to step forward. But also I do this because I don't want to go to another funeral of young people. Not one more when it comes to this gun violence. I just went to comfort a family who lost their child by going to take out garbage in the South Bronx and lost his life to gun violence. And I know that that gun was not probably purchased legally, but purchased illegally, but at some point someone purchased it. And what we want to do is prevent another buffalo from happening. We all were sad. We all talked about the people that we lost. But the truth is we have to start doing every single thing on every single front to make sure we are combating this. So I say thank you to the staff who helped put this together, my colleagues and government. But this is just one step and we're going to continue to take steps moving forward in the right direction. Thank you. Thanks. Ryan Kavanaugh, and I think I mostly was invited to make sure that there's at least one elected official who's not from Brooklyn who is supportive of what we're doing today. I do represent part of Brooklyn at the moment, but I seem to be losing that in the near future. But no, I'm really very proud to be here with this group. 15 years ago when I got to the legislature, we formed a legislative caucus to look at New York state laws and make sure we were doing what was necessary and what was possible at the state level to strengthen our laws. And New York did not have particularly strong laws at that time. One of the co-chairs of that effort was then Senator Eric Adams. And I thank him for his early leadership. But we have done in New York everything that we can think of to address this scourge. We have passed strong background checks and other laws, restrictions on assault weapons. We just raised the age to 21 to purchase a semi-automatic rifle. We have taken steps that will go into effect in the coming year to strengthen our regulations of gun dealers throughout the state to make sure they are not losing guns out the back door, as one of my colleagues mentioned. We have taken steps to give the Attorney General and others the power to hold gun companies responsible. Thanks to some great legislation passed by my colleague Senator Myrie. We have passed and then strengthened our red flag law, which is intended to remove guns from people who demonstrate through their actions or other evidence, a likelihood of harming themselves or others. And within eight days of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision, we went back to the floor of the legislature to put back in place our gun permitting laws. I know the city is now working on the regulations around how to do that to make sure that we're doing what we can. We know we're not going to solve the scourge of gun violence, which, as Jimani Williams mentioned, is unique to this country, until the gun industry and their allies in Congress and their allies in some state legislatures stop blocking the sensible things we know will stop the carnage. But the message today is that it's not just legislators, it's not just the irresponsible gun companies. There are other players, large corporate entities, that play a role in promoting and permitting the gun violence we see. If you are a credit card company, if you are someone who is processing these transactions, and you are not taking the steps you can take to allow us to prevent these incidents, you are part of the problem, and you need to stop and you need to do what's responsible. So I'm very proud to join all of my colleagues who are calling for this today. Thank you. Thank you to our state legislators. We have three more speakers and they are not elected officials, so they may not speak quite as long as we do. But I'm delighted that they're here. I mentioned that the shareholder resolutions that are being introduced at MasterCard and American Express are being brought by three of our pension fund systems, and I'm delighted that one of our pension fund trustees, the co-chair actually of the Board of Education Retirement System, Donald Nesbitt from local 372, strong supporter of taking good care of our retirees' pension funds, and making sure that they are there to make sure that our working people of the city have a safe and secure retirement, but also that we look broadly at our fiduciary duty and understand what our responsibility to reduce risk is. Donald, thank you for being here today. Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. My name is Donald Nesbitt, the executive vice president for local 372, and the co-chair of the Board of Education Retirement System. I think the reason that we're assembled here today is fear. There are those who will call this a violation of their Second Amendment rights. However, I want to tell them I'm only a child who with this title doesn't forget that I grew up in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and saw way too much gun violence when I grew up. Losing friends to gun violence, that just wasn't fear, and wasn't right, even at that time. But even as a grown man, we hear stories every day of our children being shot in schools. We hear stories of innocent bystanders, too many being shot down in our streets. And as the public advocate said, at one time these were legal guns that became illegal on our streets, and way too much death is happening, unfortunately, in our communities. As if I do cherry, I stand here proud to call for one thing for transparency. Purchases of any type or any products are spelled out on a statement. But gun purchases say retail, retail store, and that's just not right. We're calling on transparency. We know that gun violence needs to stop now. The mayor and the controller gave us statistics that are troubling. Way too many people are dying in this country and in our city, and it needs to stop now. Everyone in this country hears the stories on the news of way too many people dying, and so my challenge to the credit card companies is this question is to you. Knowing what you know and seeing what you see because we all see the same thing and experience it in different ways, and it has different effects. But the question to you is, if not you now, then who? And if not now, then when? Thank you. As was mentioned earlier, the proposal to the ISO to create the merchant category code for standalone gun stores is being brought by Amalgamated Bank. Amalgamated Bank has led the charge on so many issues on treating workers right in the fight for 15 on affordable housing, on climate, so it is no surprise that they are the financial institution leading the way on gun violence as well. And we are very fortunate to have a good friend of many of ours, First Vice President Mora Keeney of Amalgamated Bank here with us. Thank you so much, Mr. Controller. To all of the assembled advocates elected officials, particularly the mayor and controller and the trustees of the city pension funds, thank you for your work today and every day on gun violence prevention. You've heard today that gun violence is a complex problem. And the solution, as the mayor said, is going to be a series of dams. We don't have one single tool. We need a series of tools. Using having a merchant category code for stand-alone gun dealers will be one more tool, one more dam to help us stem the flow of gun violence. You've heard a lot about merchant category codes today. MCC's Day in the Sun. Very exciting for the MCC. A few examples that you haven't heard. There's a merchant category code for shoe sign stores. There's a merchant category code for bowling alleys. There's a merchant category code for wig and two-pay shops. Yet the 6,000 stand-alone gun dealers in America, there's no unique merchant category code for them. If we had one, banks and credit card companies could use our existing reporting systems to flag things like straw purchases. If you see guns or something purchased at a gun dealer with a subsequent equal or similar amount credited to the account. Multiple sales. When a buyer tries to evade local regulations about weights by engaging in successive purchases and multiple retailers. And then of course you've heard a lot today about domestic terrorism. And having a merchant category code might help us alert law enforcement in advance of a mass shooting. Businesses have a responsibility just like our elected officials do to keep our community safe. If this MCC can save one life, prevent one mass shooting, avoid one additional community trauma, then the financial services industry must act. Mastercard, American Express, and Visa must support the ISO issuance of a merchant category code. Thank you. Thank you, and big thanks to Amalgamata for leading the way here. Before I introduce our final speaker, let me just thank and recognize a couple of other people. Khalil Bragg is here, who is the Queensborough President's representative. The Queensborough President also a member of the Board of NYSERS. The staff of our corporate governance team are here, part of the reason that Amalgamata approached us is that the New York City retirement systems have a dynamite corporate governance team that brings shareholder resolutions on a wide range of fiduciary activities. So thank you to Mike Garland, Yumi Narita, Jennifer Conowitz, all for being here as well. We've got folks from the Giffords Law Center, the Brady Center, and every town for gun safety who are working every single day in the effort to end gun violence. For our final speaker, I'm pleased to introduce one more just remarkable advocate on this issue. Igor Volsky is the Executive Director of Guns Down America, who have been leading the MCC charge. Good afternoon, everybody. It's a real honor to be here standing alongside these incredible leaders in sending a clear message to Visa, to MasterCard, and to American Express that the days of hiding from this issue are over, that the days of putting politics ahead of the lives of Americans, those days are over, that they, like all of us in this room, have a responsibility to act, to do absolutely everything they could to stop mass shootings, to stop illegal gun trafficking. They have a side to pick. These companies could be on the side of Americans and communities that want to see a future with fewer guns or they can side with gun manufacturers and the gun lobby that is constantly pushing guns into our communities. You heard about some of the mass shootings where the perpetrators used identifiable, repeated purchasing patterns, taking out over a short period of time a whole bunch of credit cards, spending tens of thousands of dollars over a period of mere months on guns and ammunition and then using all of that firepower to cause havoc and tragedy in our communities. Imagine the lives that could have been saved if MasterCard, if American Express, and if Visa had acted in this very simple way of creating a merchant category code not standing in the way of its creation at the ISO and reporting suspicious, known suspicious patterns of behavior as they do on so many other issues. So I will just say, moving forward, gun violence prevention advocates, these leaders behind me and Americans across the country are going to hold Visa, MasterCard, and American Express accountable the next time you see an individual carry out that kind of suspicious pattern that they could have prevented because if they don't act, they will very clearly have blood on their hands. As much as I like the idea of a multi-mayor, Jimani, Brad, open-ended off-topic, the mayor has to run to some other activities today, and we're going to start with on-topic questions. We've got some real experts here about this. How would this be fair to small gun stores? Because you have police like Walmart, they have their own code as a discount store. If I want to purchase a large amount of products I can go to Walmart instead and that's not going to show up in my statement. So you can buy books at Walmart, but bookstores still have a merchant category code. This is about just identifying what a store sells. There are, of course, broad sporting goods stores who also sell guns and they'll be categorized as sporting goods stores. Law enforcement can still go to Dick's Sporting Goods if they believe that something that happened there needs to be tracked because it was suspicious activity at Walmart as well, but the 6,000 gun and ammunition stores are currently being categorized as miscellaneous and they're not miscellaneous. They are gun and ammunition stores and this just applies to them the same exact credit card tracking that applies to every other kind of business. Let me just say with respect to Walmart it needs to be particularized. We need specifically on these merchant reports to indicate that it's gun ammo as opposed to just miscellaneous and general items that are being purchased at Walmart and others. Let me also say that one of the reasons why the Attorney Generals were successful in our effort at opioids was because of suspicious activity reports that are being filed with pharmaceutical companies. That's how we were able to settle and stop the flow of opioids into our country and on our streets and the same needs to be done with respect to guns. The resolutions that we have and I should make clear the filing deadline at Visa already passed so to Visa we sent a letter but Amex and Mastercard we have filed shareholder resolutions. What those shareholder resolutions and my corporate governance team could tell you a lot more about this exist within a pretty regulated and restrictive sort of set of things. You can't dictate how management will act in a wide array of places so the shareholder resolution doesn't can't direct them how to vote on the MCC. The shareholder resolution is a transparency resolution and it directs them to explain to shareholders how they came to the vote that they came to. Now look, what we hope is that they will just vote in favor. I understand that the vote of the ISO is likely to be very soon. I know some folks here have been reaching out to the credit card companies. Our hope is that they will just vote in favor as soon as that vote takes place in the coming days. If they don't then we will proceed with the shareholder resolution seeking to get a majority of shareholders voting in favor of a resolution that would require them to explain their vote. The goal here is to make clear that shareholders believe this is in our fiduciary duty that it's in the credit card companies interest to reduce and manage risk and of course then we're joining with a broad set of other stakeholders pushing for this action. Hello but one other thing. If the MCC would it go through would it get approved? Would they be required to call the police and say hey this doesn't look right? Well first I'll be honest they wouldn't even be required to use it. So that'll be step two. Step one is getting the ISO to vote to establish the category and what has blocked it in the past is that the credit card companies have not supported it so we need them to support it then the ISO will vote. Then they have to adopt it and generally they adopt what the ISO establishes but it's not a requirement so we hope they will do all of that. From that point there are a set of laws that address suspicious activity. So if there is suspicious activity and the Attorney General can speak to this you have legal reporting requirements and obviously if law enforcement comes to you you have particular reporting requirements. I guess I was... You touched on that a little bit but to piggyback on the investor problem is there any scenario under which you pull out the city's retirement investments out of these companies if somehow they don't agree to these changes? So I know that there's for understandable reasons a lot of interest in the idea of divestment and in some very rare situations the New York City pension funds and actually Board of Education Retirement System did vote to divest from public equities in fossil fuel reserve owners but shareholder resolutions and engagement with corporations is a much, much broader set of activities that our corporate governance team are doing all the time. So through corporate engagement and shareholder resolution we've persuaded the vast majority of S&P 100 companies to disclose their EEO1 reports for diversity to disclose more information about their Board of Directors to become more diverse to take actions against insider trading and on and on and on. So this fits in that more general shareholder engagement shareholder activism where because you hold a position in a company and obviously you're there, you're investing in them because the retirees and workers of our city need us to earn good returns on retirement but as a fiduciary you believe there's an obligation to make sure those investments are safe and responsible we're helping MasterCard and AMEX and Visa manage their risks through this activity so this for us is straightforward shareholder engagement. Well, first we hope that they'll act to support it. If they don't then we'll move forward with the shareholder resolutions management doesn't love it when investors bring shareholder resolutions that are not something that they have initiated and we find a lot of the time in many cases, I don't know what the numbers are but in many cases just filing a resolution will bring engagement between the company and the investors. Quite often they'll agree to take action and the proposal gets withdrawn so there's a good strong track record of shareholder engagement and you heard what the case is here. I'm very hopeful that these three companies will understand where their investors are where the American people are. It's gone related not exactly on this topic about the vote today, the here and today on my concealed gun carry law. I just want to know if there's anything I want us to say about guns not being concealed carry, not being allowed in Times Square and how that's being kind of drawn out where it's allowed or not allowed. First I want to thank the state as the senator said for immediately acting after the Supreme Court and I'm proud of the city council for acting to try to promulgate some rules that will adapt to that. I'm proud to be one of the co-sponsors on that bill that was a hearing today as we try to move that forward and figuring out the spaces that are going to be designated in the categories that are allowed by law. What we are going to make sure happens is that we have laws that protect the people who live in this city. Regardless of what's being done on the outside we do know that the laws are promulgating. I'm glad that folks acted quickly and the city council who isn't here I don't think I'm going to represent so I'm ex officio I'll try my best but I'm proud of the speaker and the full council for having the hearing moving quickly and I'm hoping to see that move very fast. There are institutional challenges to the state bill we've been successful in all of our cases thus far. I think this meeting is in September. Is that the meeting? The ISO has not scheduled their vote that we're publicly aware of but we believe it could be happening in the coming days. Maybe you can get them to answer when the vote will be. We moved quickly to move the resolution and put this together on understanding that the ISO vote was likely to be coming soon. So one argument the credit card companies have used is that it would be logistically difficult for a place like Walmart or basketball shops to be categorized but something that I've also heard is for instance if you have a grocery store you can have a separate register for like a pharmacy inside. Do you see a situation where a Walmart could have a separate register for gun purchases that would allow for the use of a code like this? Just to be clear what this is and isn't this really is about categorizing the retailer. So Bass Pro Shops is a sporting goods store the majority of their sales are for sporting goods and they'll continue to use the MCC of a sporting goods store even though I mean I hope they'll stop selling guns but you know as long as they sell guns. So that does, we'll continue to present some of the challenges of tracking even though for all the reasons that we talked about Bass Pro Shops has reporting obligations and has to report suspicious activity. So all this will require is stand-alone gun stores who are currently categorized as miscellaneous to use the MCC as that would be created for stand-alone gun stores. The question about larger retailers as you point out they do this already right is that there's part of their inventory that is coded differently and they use a different code and it all works well. This is all excuses and so what you're hearing is they already do this with every other code. So they've had these conversations they've had to work it out all we're asking them is to fit this in to the schematic that they already have except for guns. All sales of guns are at stand-alone stores. So while you know as the controller said this won't mean that Bass Pro Shops or Walmart will get recategorized as a gun dealer it will mean that half of those sales and in many cases sales to individuals who are looking for high weapon capacity and ammo are at stand-alone gun stores. So half of the sales that happen nationally could be flagged. And again the only flag that's going to happen is when a credit card company or a bank sees suspicious activity. If tomorrow the controller goes and buys a rifle this isn't going to happen at Bass Pro Shop there's nothing suspicious about that, right? If next week Brian Kavanaugh goes and every day spends $5,000 at five different gun dealers that could be flagged by a financial institution as a suspicious pattern of activity. And it would be suspicious if I went shopping five days in a row at all. Just one point on the larger retailer question. I mean many of the larger retailers the Walmart's already have taken steps proactively voluntarily to be much more responsible. Walmart stopped selling our AR-15s in 2015. They sell very few handguns at this point. They stopped selling high capacity ammunition magazines. So there are other routes that we can go to corporate retailers that are selling a wide range of things. For standalone gun shops that are often the sort of core stop for people who are trying to accumulate guns this is a big step. It's not a full answer to retail gun sales in America but it's a big part of the problem and this is a very practical and straightforward way that we can help solve the problem. Credit cards have the systems already. The Attorney General talked about SARs, suspicious activities reports. We make them daily. So having the code would just allow continued reporting. And can I also say this is the second effort by a credit card company to avoid responsibility for gun violence. In April of this year, MasterCard's Board of Directors they recommended that a shareholder vote down a proposal that would have mandated MasterCard to develop a report on the use of its platform for transactions involving ghost guns. They recommended that their shareholders voted it down and in fact they did vote it down. Well first I will say we're making an argument to them as shareholders that we are concerned that they're not managing risk well by not doing it. So the next time that something were to happen mass shooting with weapons that were purchased at MasterCard at a small gun store they'll have managed their risks much better if they took a step that they could to help law enforcement face that risk. So I hope that their chief risk officer and the folks whose job it is to manage and de-risk these multinational companies is paying attention to the fact that shareholders think it is in their strong financial interest. So you know there's a good set of arguments here. But we will proceed with the shareholder resolution and yes that doesn't you know that doesn't do more than if it passes or require them to give their reasons but at least that would be a good thing we could all start to guess I think their reasons might be for not doing something so obvious and potentially life-saving but they have not been required to disclose their reasoning and this would do that and you know I think what we would just say is we're not giving up you know like this is I wish we all wish that we're a lot easier path to get folks on board but nobody here is going to give up till we get there. One thing I'll say is they don't make any more money by doing this and they won't make any less money by you know by doing it so this is not part of why we are demanding an explanation is that sometimes the things that a shareholder might be asking you could you know if you to raise wages might impact the bottom line but there is no impact on the credit card company's profits from creating a merchant category code which is why what we hope they'll do is just vote in favor of the resolution but if not we're going to do everything we can to demand a real account. Alright thank you all very much really appreciate everybody being here doing all this work.