Dive Brief:
- Republican and Democratic Congress members this month introduced bills related to the use of a merchant category code for firearm retailers, teeing up conflict over the issue at the federal level.
- Republican Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York, Andy Barr of Kentucky and Richard Hudson of North Carolina filed a bill Friday that would prohibit use of the four-digit code that’s been created to identify merchants selling firearms. The codes are used in card transactions.
- The legislation comes on the heels of a bill introduced by Florida Democratic Reps. Maxwell Alejandro Frost and Jared Moskowitz on Feb. 14, which would require use of the code.
Dive Insight:
Competing legislation at the federal level mirrors what has been occurring in state houses across the country over the past year, as lawmakers have taken opposing sides on the gun merchant category code.
The GOP-backed legislation introduced Friday, called the Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act, would preempt state laws and prohibit card networks from requiring use of the code distinguishing a gun merchant from a general-merchandise or sporting-goods retailer. “The tracking of gun purchases is a violation and infringement on the Constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans,” Stefanik said in a news release.
The bill “would rein in federal overreach to use the private financial transactions of law-abiding citizens against them for political means,” Lawrence G. Keane, general counsel and senior vice president at trade association National Shooting Sports Foundation, said in a Friday statement.
Meanwhile, the bill introduced by Democrats, called the Identify Gun Stores Act, would also preempt legislation passed in states that have sought to prohibit the code’s implementation, Hudson Munoz, executive director of Guns Down America, said in a Friday interview.
The bill’s Democratic sponsors noted there are “common red flags” the code could draw attention to, such as an 18-year-old buying AR-15s, body armor and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
“Broadly speaking, what we need, and what the payment system and the banking system need, is certainty about this code,” Munoz said. If enacted, the bill would go “a long way towards clarifying expectations for banks and expectations for examiners, and it has the benefit of moving the code closer to implementation.”
Munoz likened Republicans’ bill, attempting to stop the code’s use, to “standing up for gun violence.”
“The Second Amendment does not exempt any aspect of the gun industry from the same rules and standards that apply to everyone else,” he said in an email. The gun MCC “brings retailers into the payment system formally and provides a new data point that can help our financial system detect and deter gun crime.”
The code has been a politically fraught issue for Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover Financial Services since it was approved by the International Organization for Standardization in September 2022 and published last February. The four networks all backed off implementation of the code last year after Republican politicians took aim at it.
Since then, several states have passed legislation to bar the code’s use, while California has passed a bill requiring its use. Visa, Mastercard and American Express are reportedly taking steps to comply with California’s law.
At the state level, Colorado and New York are also considering legislation to require the code’s use, while New Jersey, Utah, Georgia and Kentucky are among those weighing bills to bar use of the code.
