Over 100 House Republicans have jointly called for credit card companies to provide answers regarding the decision to categorize gun sales.
The faction has issued letters to major credit card companies, including Visa, American Express and MasterCard. In these letters, they demanded that the companies explain the reason behind their adaptation to new Merchant Category Codes set by the International Organization for Standardization. These codes will explicitly categorize firearms purchases separately from any other type of purchase.
The faction asked the credit card companies to explain the standards used to adopt this code to the public. They questioned if accepting this code and further flagging law enforcement was an attempt to help the Biden administration skirt federal law by effectively creating a gun registry.
The representatives wrote, “As you know, the ISO uses four-digit codes known as MCCs to classify merchants and businesses by the type of goods or services provided. There were already two MCCs that captured legal firearm sales, 5999 for Miscellaneous Retail Stores and 5941 for Sporting Goods Stores.”
Last year, a far-left banking firm applied for the International organization for Standardization to adopt a separate code for gun dealers. The application was rejected at the time as the ISO said such separation would be unable to account for many details and also be burdensome to small-scale dealers.
Visa and American Express were also not supporting this MMC for only firearms. An employee from American Express said, “Specific MCC [codes] in narrow [retail] areas is challenging. Managing long lists of narrowly defined MCCs can become burdensome if there isn’t a compelling reason for the long list.”
Visa also wrote a letter to the democrats who pushed for this separate MCC code urging caution against it. The company wrote, “We believe that asking payment networks to serve as a moral authority by deciding which legal goods can or cannot be purchased sets a dangerous precedent.”
The relentless banking firm Amalgamated Bank reapplied for the MCC again this year. This time, the ISO gave in to the pressure and adopted the new MCC codes. The lawmakers noted that the banking firm claimed its intentions with the software was to flag fraudulent purchases “made by Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights and file these red flags with law enforcement.”
This sounds like an underhanded way to harass and target anyone who exercises their 2A rights, simply because they legally purchase a firearm or ammunition.
Visa, Mastercard, AmEx to start categorizing gun shop sales https://t.co/82dOANX8lX
— WykedWytch (@wytch_wyked) September 11, 2022
They added, “Of course, there is no accepted, consistent, scientific, or legitimate way to determine from this data what is and what is not a ‘suspicious’ purchase.This is a transparent attempt to chill the exercise of constitutionally protected rights and to circumvent existing legal restrictions on the creation of firearm registries by the government.”
If you use a grocery store loyalty card, they are already tracking the food you purchase. Now they will track this. We continue to lose our privacy and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to be self-reliant.https://t.co/SjAZ2RfBKa
— MyPatriotSupply (@MyPatriotSupply) September 12, 2022
The republican lawmakers, in their letter, demanded answers to several questions outlined. They asked the companies to change their view regarding this issue and what criteria they decided to use to flag the suspicious transactions. A total of 101 Republicans signed the letter.