Credit card companies greenlight tracking of gun purchases in California with new code

Several large credit card companies are taking steps to track gun purchases in California with a new code, CBS News reported on Monday.

American Express, Visa, and Mastercard are working on putting a merchant code in place for firearm and ammunition stores, CBS News reported. They are doing this to adhere to a California law that could enable banks to monitor certain gun purchases that are deemed suspect to forward to law enforcement agencies, which Second Amendment advocates have pushed back against.

Gun stores at present are categorized with various retailers, including sporting goods sellers, according to CBS News. These credit card companies previously consented to establish a unique code specifically for firearm vendors but halted the effort following resistance from Second Amendment advocates who said it could violate the rights of lawful gun owners.

However, gun control advocates are hopeful the code can help prevent gun-related crime by detecting questionable purchases, according to CBS News. They compare it to how banks and credit unions notify law enforcement about identity theft or terrorism funding.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) approved the code in 2022 and California passed a law mandating firearm retailers adopt it by May 2025, according to CBS News. Executives from each company wrote to congressional Democrats that the code would be ready by then.

Seven or more Republican state legislatures have passed legislation to ban this code and nine additional states are deliberating about doing so, CBS reported.

“If governments or credit card companies start to require certain purchase patterns at gun stores be reported to police, that could put a lot of innocent people under suspicion depending on how broad the criteria are,” Stephen Gutowski, a gun expert who founded The Reload, told the Daily Caller News Foundation after the approval.

Visa, American Express, and Mastercard did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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