Visa, Mastercard halt plans to track gun purchases

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Visa, Mastercard gun-purchase tracking overview: 

• Who: Visa, Mastercard and Discover have announced they are halting their work on a plan to separately track cardholders’ gun store purchases. 
• Why: The credit card companies made the decision following pushback to the plan by Republican lawmakers, who warned the plan could violate antitrust and consumer protection laws.
• Where: Several states have already advanced bills related to the now-paused new merchant category code.

Major credit card companies Visa, Mastercard and Discover have decided to walk back a plan to track cardholders’ purchases made at gun stores, following resistance from Republican lawmakers. 

The payment-processing companies said last week they are suspending work on a new merchant category code for firearms and ammunition stores that was to go in the International Organization for Standardization, Fox Business reports. 

Under the proposed new merchant category code, sales made at gun and ammunition stores would have been separately categorized, CNN reports. 

The adoption of a new code was reportedly backed by anti-gun activists who wanted to see gun sales flagged and help for monitoring suspicious activity that could be a precursor to a mass shooting.  

Gun-rights activists, on the other hand, argued the initiative would be a violation of the Second Amendment and their privacy rights, reports Fox Business. 

Two dozen Republican attorneys general also reportedly warned the credit card companies last month that they should back off their plans to separately categorize gun sales, warning it could potentially violate antitrust and consumer protection laws, among other things. 

Gun store sales previously classified under general merchandise, sporting goods categories

Sales at gun stores were previously classified as either general merchandise or in the sporting goods category, however, the International Organization for Standardization approved work on the new code in September 2022, CNN reports. 

In a statement reportedly issued last week, Mastercard said while several states have bills advancing that are related to the potential new code, the company has decided not to continue its work on it at this time. 

“If passed, the result will be an inconsistency in how this ISO standard could be applied by merchants, issuers, acquirers and networks,” Mastercard said. “It’s for that reason that we have decided to pause work on the implementation of the firearms-specific MCC.”

A class action lawsuit was filed last year by a college student arguing the federal government was violating his Second and Fifth Amendment rights by preventing individuals under the age of 21 from purchasing a handgun from a federally licensed firearms dealer. 

Do you believe Mastercard, Visa and Discover should track cardholders’ gun store purchases? Let us know in the comments!

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