By: José Niño
Towards the middle of June, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed House Bill 2837 which would ban the tracking of transactions at firearm retailers with a specialized Merchant Category Code (MCC).
In making this bill law, Texas joins the likes of Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, and West Virginia in passing legislation to prohibit the use of MCC codes. Moreover, Texas is currently the largest state to impose restrictions on the usage of MCCs.
Texas’s passage of such legislation is a victory for gun rights advocates who have long been concerned about corporations in tandem with the government working to track and potentially flag specific types of gun purchases.
Credit card companies generally use MCCs to put all kinds of transactions into different categories. Generally speaking, this practice is used to offer incentives for different types of purchases. However, gun rights proponents contend that the codes could be used to track allegedly suspicious purchasing patterns, which could subsequently be passed on to law enforcement bodies.
Back in 2018, the New York Times published a report highlighting some mass shooters’ propensity to purchase firearms with credit cards. Stephen Bole of The Reload noted that the report made the case for implementing a unique code for firearm vendors that would allegedly make it easier to identify potential mass shooters.
In September 2022, Amalgamated Bank, which has long-standing connections to gun control organizations, put forward the creation of an MCC to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The organization gave the green light to the concept back in September 2022 after the request was initially denied.
Discover, Mastercard, and Visa announced they would implement the code after the ISO gave its official approval to it.
Gun rights proponents sharply criticized the plan. They argued that the code would be incapable of preventing mass shootings, would have gun owners subjected to unfair tracking, and harm firearm vendors.
A few days after the credit card companies’ announcement, 12 Republican attorneys general sent a letter to premier credit card companies manifesting their concerns with regards to the code.
“As Attorneys General, we have the privilege of protecting our citizens from corporate coordination that hurts consumers,” the letter stated. “We are also charged with ensuring that consumer data is not unlawfully gathered or used. That is why we have serious concerns about the implementation of this Merchant Category Code.”
However, in March, Discover, Mastercard, and Visa announced they were stopping plans to implement the MCC, alluding to the passage of legislation that banned specific codes for gun stores.
Dudley Brown, the President of the National Association for Gun Rights, opined on the passage of this law:
“It’s no secret that Gun Control Inc. is actively trying to compile an all-encompassing database of every gun and gun owner in America. It is an essential first step toward their ultimate goal of an outright gun confiscation program. The National Association for Gun Rights supports any legislation that blocks Big-Brother from completing their gun owner registry.”
Credit card companies along with other corporate entities have jumped on the anti-gun bandwagon in recent years. Gun Control Inc. knows that passing gun control via legislative means is not easy, so it will have to use unconventional means to implement its agenda.
This new political reality will require red states to pass legislation that limits corporations’ ability to infringe on gun rights. We must be ready to defend gun rights on all fronts.
José Niño is a freelance writer based in Austin, Texas. Contact him via Facebook, Twitter, or email him at [email protected]. Get his e-book, The 10 Myths of Gun Control, here.