Major credit card companies are moving to make a merchant code available for firearm and ammunition retailers in order to comply with a new California law that will allow banks to potentially track suspicious gun purchases and report them to law enforcement, CBS News has learned.
Retailers are assigned merchant codes based on the types of goods they sell, and the codes allow banks and credit card companies to detect purchase patterns. Currently gun shops are lumped in with other types of retailers, such as sporting goods stores.
Mastercard, Visa and American Express initially agreed to implement a standalone code for firearm sellers, but later paused their work on it after receiving blowback from Second Amendment advocates concerned tracking gun purchases would infringe on the rights of legal gun owners.
Michael Kaplan and Clare Hymes, “American Express, Visa, Mastercard move ahead with code to track gun store purchases in California,” CBS News, February 12, 2024.
Can someone please explain to us exactly how credit card tracking will allow the California state government to identify suspicious gun purchases? Here is part of a piece we had on this point back in 2022.
Credit card companies can help fill in the gaps regarding recent purchases of guns and ammunition. And they have presumably agreed to do so in hope of protecting themselves from lawsuits. Supposedly, this will make Americans safer. Last Wednesday, Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul claimed that credit card companies flagging “suspicious activity” was important “to combat gun violence.” Other gun control advocates say they want to track “suspicious” sales that “could potentially lead to a mass shooting.”
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Given that gun buyers who use credit cards have already passed background checks to see if they can legally buy guns, what “suspicious” activities could credit card companies possibly look for? Is buying two or three guns evidence of suspicious activity? The majority of mass public shootings since 1998 only used one gun. Do you look for people who buy AR-15s, America’s most popular rifle? Put aside that even the Associated Press now recognizes that these aren’t “weapons of war” and are no different than other hunting rifles, only rarely do mass public shootings involve rifles and no other type of firearm.
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Should we be suspicious if someone purchases a couple hundred rounds of ammunition? People can easily use that many rounds at a shooting range in an afternoon.
John R. Lott, Jr. and Thomas Massie, “Credit Card Companies Join Democrats’ Gun Control Scheme,” Newsweek, September 13, 2024.