The Reporter (Lansdale, PA)

Decision to track gun shop purchases put on pause

- By Ken Sweet

Visa and Mastercard 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, also 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 — like 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 has paused their 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 that the reason for the gun shop category was a decision outside of 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.

 ?? SETH PERLMAN - THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE ?? Weapons for sale at Capitol City Arms Supply on Jan. 16in Springfiel­d, Ill.
SETH PERLMAN - THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE Weapons for sale at Capitol City Arms Supply on Jan. 16in Springfiel­d, Ill.

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