In the near future, I will be re-introducing legislation that will prevent credit card companies from tracking the second amendment activities of law-abiding citizens.  SB 556 was previously co-sponsored by Senators Hutchinson, Laughlin, Bartolotta and J. Ward

                In September of 2022, Democratic members of Congress issued letters to major American credit card companies urging them to create a new merchant category code for gun and ammunition retail outlets. The letter claims that “The creation of a new MCC for gun and ammunition retail stores would be the first step towards facilitating the collection of valuable financial data that could help law enforcement in countering the financing of terrorism efforts”. As clearly stated by Members of Congress in their letter, the purpose of this effort is “facilitating the collection of valuable financial data”. Law-abiding citizens who pass a background check and are eligible to buy firearms should not be subject to mass data collection and surveillance.

                Furthermore, this new classification could be the first step towards enabling these financial institutions to ban gun sales altogether. Companies like PayPal, Stripe, and Square already ban gun sales using their platforms. By creating a classification that is unique to firearms, it is that much easier for activist groups and others to put pressure on financial institutions to simply shut off the ability of their products to be used for guns and ammo.

                This new classification is a dangerous and unprecedented attempt to track law-abiding citizens who are simply exercising their constitutional rights. Please join me in cosponsoring this vitally important piece of legislation.

Statutes/Laws affected:
Printer's No. 0598: 18-6111.4