Credit Card Companies Announce Plans to Track Gun Store Purchases
Visa, America Express, and Mastercard have recently announced their plans to track purchases made at gun shops via a new identifying code. The International Organization for Standardization approved the creation of a merchant code that would allow for gun store purchases to be categorized separately from other retail purchases.
When announcing the new policy, Visa said, “Following ISO’s decision to establish a new merchant category code, Visa will proceed with next steps, while ensuring we protect all legal commerce on the Visa network in accordance with our long-standing rules.”
Gun-control advocates are hailing the move as a step in the right direction that will keep firearms away from violent individuals, however it is also being met with stark opposition. Second Amendment advocates claim that tracking gun store sales would not only target the industry as a whole, but also legal gun purchasers, who commit less than a fifth of all gun crimes. In fact, a study conducted by the University of Pittsburgh found that “approximately 8 out of 10 cases, the perpetrator was not a lawful gun owner but rather in illegal possession of a weapon that belonged to someone else.”
“The ISO’s decision to create a firearm specific code is nothing more than a capitulation to anti-gun politicians and activists bent on eroding the rights of law-abiding Americans one transaction at a time,”
“This is not about tracking or prevention or any virtuous motivation — it’s about creating a national registry of gun owners,”
NRA
Reuters reported that the code will be able to determine where an individual made purchases, and the monetary value of the items, but not what was purchased. Many question whether or not the measure would even be an effective means of tracking “suspicious” activity, and want the companies to make further commitments to tracking specific purchases.
There are a number of concerns from citizens who are wondering: who will determine what is defined as “suspicious activity,” and if this will conveniently create a makeshift firearm registry. Additionally, it is worrisome to watch private companies do the government’s bidding. Big Tech companies got the ball rolling with this concept, labeling anything the government deemed politically inconvenient “misinformation.” But the thought of credit card companies tracing who spends money at which gun shop is an eerie rendition of the tactic.
Most people aren’t comfortable with the idea of payment providers reporting this sort of in-depth information to the to the government, for obvious reasons, but the companies don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
