This plan, originally hatched in 2022, was soundly beaten back last year when several states that respect the Second Amendment acted. A flurry of new laws banned the establishment of this precursor to a national registry, and the companies backed down.
Officially they declared a “pause.”
But according to a CBS News report last week, Visa, Mastercard and American Express are back at it. The trio of financial institutions are working to comply with a new California statute mandating the specialized Merchant Category Code (MCC) be implemented for all gun and ammunition transactions within the state.
Sacramento lawmakers passed the law to take effect in May 2025.
Their stated goal was to have financial institutions track weapons and ammunition sales and flag those deemed suspicious. These would be handed over to law enforcement.
What constitutes “suspicious” in California’s extreme anti-gun environment is anyone’s guess.
What is clear is that this marks a sharp reversal from last March’s announcement that such a protocol was put on hold. At that time, the companies cited the fierce backlash from several states that threatened to create a national patchwork of reporting laws.
This, they said, was unmanageable. But California apparently swayed that opinion, and these firms are now quietly resuming work on enacting these MCCs.
CBS News reported the credit card companies penned an unpublicized missive to congressional gun control proponents led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
Visa senior vice president Robert B. Thomson III wrote that his company will attempt to comply with the Golden State edict. “With respect to the [firearm merchant code], there continues to be a tremendous amount of regulatory and legislative uncertainty. Given the conflicting state laws on this topic and the likelihood that other states will enact legislation to either restrict or mandate the code, our implementation pause remains in effect.”
But apparently not in California.
Warren released a statement lauding the resumption of the march toward a gun store special code. “It’s a start that credit card companies have committed to comply with the law in California, but we need implementation across the country if we’re going to do everything we can to prevent gun violence.”
Incredibly and without a shred of evidence, Warren added that such implementation will lead to the prevention of mass shootings.
Seven states, including Texas and Florida, have passed laws prohibiting the use of such merchant codes that single out gun retailers. But on the other side, Colorado is pushing a bill mandating MCC codes that strongly mirrors California’s controversial law.
Proponents on both sides of the issue call for federal action to clarify whether gun and ammunition purchases will be tracked by credit card companies.
Brady President Kris Brown proclaimed that the absence of a national standard increases the difficulty for financial institutions to properly function. “We need to make sure these codes are being used in every state that they can be and pass federal legislation to put public safety over gun industry profits.”
Not so, said National Shooting Sports Foundation Senior Vice President Larry Keane. “Congress must bar the use of this gun owner privacy-invading code. It will do nothing to stop crime.”
The issue had simmered on the back burner before exploding in September 2022. That’s when the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) announced the formation of an MCC for gun retailers.
ISO had come under intense pressure from activist institutions to single out firearms transactions for tracking.
This led to the major U.S. credit card companies agreeing to adopt the changes. That push was stopped dead in its tracks, however, when states lined up in opposition and the transaction processors backed down.
Now the fight over gun owners’ privacy is poised to intensify yet again.
