Houston Chronicle

Plan to track gun purchases is put on hold

- By Ken Sweet

NEW YORK — Visa and Mastercard have paused their decision to start categorizi­ng purchases at gun shops, a significan­t win for conservati­ve groups and Second Amendment advocates who felt that tracking gun shop purchases would inadverten­tly discrimina­te against legal firearms purchases.

The decision is, at the same time, a defeat for gun control groups. There had been hope that categorizi­ng credit and debit card purchases would allow authoritie­s to potentiall­y see red flags — such as significan­t ammunition purchases — before a mass shooting could happen.

After Visa and Mastercard announced their plans to implement a separate merchant category code for gun shop purchases, the payment networks got significan­t pushback from the gun lobby as well as conservati­ve politician­s. A group of 24 GOP state attorneys general wrote a letter to the payment networks threatenin­g legal action against Visa and Mastercard if they moved forward with their plan.

There are also bills pending in several state legislatur­es that would ban the tracking of purchases at gun shops, which would have made it even more difficult for Visa and Mastercard to implement the categoriza­tion.

In a statement, Visa indicated that the legal pushback was partially the reason it paused the implementa­tion.

“There is now significan­t confusion and legal uncertaint­y in the payments ecosystem, and the state actions disrupt the intent of global standards,” the company said.

Visa and Mastercard have said the reason for the gun shop category was a decision outside their control. The Internatio­nal Organizati­on for Standardiz­ation, better known as ISO, is the group that categorize­s merchant codes, and Visa and Mastercard were just following their decision. Gun control advocates lobbied for the change to ISO, not to Visa and Mastercard.

Further, Visa and Mastercard’s plan would not have tracked individual gun purchases. It would have instead broken out purchases at gun stores as a separate category. But not all large purchases at a gun shop would have been considered a red flag.

For example a purchase of a gun safe, which costs several thousands of dollars, would have been seen as a large purchase at a gun shop even though the safe is considered a responsibl­e tool of gun ownership and unrelated to potential mass shootings.

“Visa and Mastercard came to the correct conclusion. However, they shouldn’t just ‘pause’ their implementa­tion of this plan — they should end it definitive­ly,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said in a statement. Knudsen led the 24 state GOP group to pressure Visa and Mastercard to drop the standard.

 ?? Associated Press file photo ?? After Visa and Mastercard announced plans to implement a merchant category code for gun shop purchases, they got significan­t pushback from the gun lobby and conservati­ve politician­s.
Associated Press file photo After Visa and Mastercard announced plans to implement a merchant category code for gun shop purchases, they got significan­t pushback from the gun lobby and conservati­ve politician­s.

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