Credit Card Companies Push Pause On Tracking Gun & Ammo Purchases After Backlash – But Don’t Think They Won’t Move Ahead

Earlier this week, I reported on credit card companies that were in the works to track gun and ammunition sales, namely Discover.  While all the other big players in this scheme were lined up behind to follow in Discover’s footsteps, they have now pressed paused on their tracking scheme due to backlash, but just like PayPal, they will return again to their agenda, just give it time… unless the people starve them out of business by not using their plastic fiat money.

Guns in the News has the story.

Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover have decided to pause plans specifically designed to track purchases in gun stores.

This comes after Discover previously announced it intended to move forward with the implementation of a new merchant category code (MCC) created for tracking any purchases made through stores that sell, among other things, firearms.

The decision to pause comes after pushback in the forms of bills designed to prevent financial institutions from requiring the use of a firearms-specific MCC to track purchases began making their way through various state legislatures.

“There are bills advancing in several states related to the use of this new code. If passed, the result will be an inconsistency in how this ISO standard could be applied by merchants, issuers, acquirers, and networks,” said a Mastercard spokesman. “It’s for that reason that we have decided to pause work on the implementation of the firearms-specific [MCC].”

Discover, meanwhile, said its reasoning for the pause was “to continue alignment and interoperability with the industry.” Visa said it did so because of “significant confusion and legal uncertainty.”

The gun-purchase-tracking scheme, if it were it implemented, would “create a registry of gun owners that [gun-control groups] have long sought and provide them with another tool to attack lawful industry when firearms are used in crime,” as reported by the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (ILA).

Legislation to counter this disingenuous attempt at a gun registry has been moving through multiple states, including Florida and Texas.

In announcing the legislation, Florida state Sen. Danny Burgess (R) said, “This is the United States of America. You don’t get penalized for exercising a Constitutional right. The Second Amendment is nonnegotiable, and here in Florida, we are going to fight to protect the rights of Floridians.”

And, in Texas, state Rep. Matt Schaefer (R) introduced similar legislation. “We cannot let big banks and credit card companies create a gun registry which will be used against law abiding gun owners,” tweeted Schaefer.

A growing number of attorneys general, state-level representatives and more have also expressed concerns about this policy, should it be enacted.

“While gun owners may be able in the short term to modify their purchasing practices, or avoid companies like Discover that infringe on their privacy and rights, they shouldn’t have to fear scrutiny or harassment for their lawful—and especially their constitutionally-protected—purchases,” wrote NRA-ILA.

The Gateway Pundit adds:

Last year, the International Organization for Standardization –the organization in charge of setting standards for business transactions — voted to create a “merchant category code” for gun purchases.

This will allow banks that process payments from gun retailers to assign the new code to the gun stores.

West Virginia State Treasurer Riley Moore announced on Friday that Visa and Mastercard “dropped their plans to track firearm and ammunition purchases.”

“This is a clear victory for consumers and Americans’ civil liberties,” said Moore. “The implementation of this new merchant category code would have created a backdoor national gun registry that could be used by the radical gun control lobby to undermine Americans’ Second Amendment rights.”

“West Virginia once again led the way to push back against another woke attempt to undermine our values and way of life. Visa and Mastercard’s decision comes as our state prepares to complete passage of landmark legislation to ban this kind of financial-tracking scheme. Our action – and their response – once again demonstrates that when states use our collective voice in the marketplace, we can turn the tide against the woke elites trying to jam their extremist agendas down our throats.”

AP also reported:

After Visa and Mastercard announced their plans to implement a separate merchant category code for gun shop purchases, the payment networks got significant pushback from the gun lobby as well as conservative politicians. A group of 24 GOP state attorneys general wrote a letter to the payment networks threatening legal action against Visa and Mastercard if they moved forward with their plan.

There are also bills pending in several state legislatures that would ban the tracking of purchases at gun shops, which would have made it even more difficult for Visa and Mastercard to implement the categorization.

In a statement, Visa indicated that the legal pushback was partially the reason they have paused their implementation.

Visa and Mastercard have said that the reason for the gun shop category was a decision outside of their control. The International Organization for Standardization, better known as ISO, is the group that categorizes merchant codes and Visa and Mastercard were just following their decision. Gun control advocates lobbied for the change to ISO, not to Visa and Mastercard.

“Visa and Mastercard came to the correct conclusion. However, they shouldn’t just ‘pause’ their implementation of this plan—they should end it definitively,” said Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, who led the 24 state GOP group to pressure Visa and Mastercard to drop the standard, in a statement.