Starting from Monday, a new California law will mandate credit card networks like Visa and Mastercard to furnish banks with unique retail codes that can be assigned to gun stores for sales tracking purposes.
Conversely, new laws in Georgia, Iowa, Tennessee, and Wyoming will have the opposite effect by prohibiting the use of specific codes for gun shops.
These conflicting laws underscore a new gun policy debate that has emerged in state capitols, dividing along familiar partisan lines.
Some Democratic lawmakers and gun-control activists believe that the new retail tracking code can assist financial institutions in flagging suspicious gun-related purchases for law enforcement agencies, potentially preventing mass shootings and other crimes. Colorado and New York lawmakers have also followed California’s lead.
“The merchant category code is the first step in the banking system saying, `Enough! We’re putting our foot down,’” said Hudson Munoz, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Guns Down America. “`You cannot use our system to facilitate gun crimes.’”
However, many Republican lawmakers and gun-rights advocates are concerned that the retail code could lead to unwarranted suspicion of innocent gun buyers. Over the past 16 months, 17 states with GOP-led legislatures have passed measures to prevent the use of firearms store codes.
“We view this as a first step by gun-control supporters to restrict the lawful commerce in firearms,” said Lawrence Keane, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, an industry group that supports laws blocking the use of tracking codes.
The new laws further deepen the national divide on gun policy. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recently declared gun violence a public health crisis, citing a rise in firearm-related deaths. On July 4, Louisiana will become the 29th state to allow residents to carry concealed guns without a permit, while New Mexico has tightened laws for those without concealed-carry permits.
States have also responded differently to recent mass shootings and other incidents. The surge of legislation targeting firearm store category codes addresses a hidden aspect of electronic financial transactions, aiming to identify suspicious activities related to gun purchases.
California’s new law mandates credit card networks to make firearms codes available to financial institutions, aligning with similar laws in Colorado and New York. The implementation of these codes is seen as a way to potentially prevent mass shootings by detecting suspicious patterns in gun purchases.
These laws have varying effective dates but generally allow state attorneys general to seek injunctions against financial institutions using the codes if needed.
The use of a merchant code for firearms may prompt more people to use cash instead of credit for gun purchases to protect their privacy. Nevertheless, the debate over these laws continues to highlight the division between states on gun policy and the protection of Second Amendment rights.
