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Well, it is finally happening. Credit card companies are poised to begin tracking gun purchases due to demands from the anti-gunner lobby, which seeks to curtail lawful gun ownership among responsible Americans.
Discover will be the first company to adopt this procedure beginning in April. The other major providers will follow suit shortly after.
However, this does not mean these companies will not meet with resistance. Indeed, Florida is considering a measure that would make it quite expensive for these organizations to create a de facto gun registry at the behest of the anti-gunner lobby.
WFTV9 reported:
Credit-card companies could face fines of up to $10,000 per violation for tracking firearm and ammunition sales in Florida, under a measure approved Tuesday by a Senate committee.
The Republican-controlled Senate Banking and Insurance Committee voted 7-3 along party lines to approve a bill (SB 214) that would target yet-to-be-enacted plans by some credit-card companies to create a separate “merchant category code” for sales at firearm businesses.
State Sen. Danny Burgess, a Republican who sponsored the bill, noted that if it became law, it would prevent private entities from collecting data related to gun sales.
“In Florida, we take it very seriously to protect consumers’ rights, gun rights and their right to privacy, and I believe that this MCC (merchant category code) would lead to the creation of a registry in essence, potentially having a chilling effect on constitutional rights,” he said. “We’re basically putting teeth behind current law in Florida, which prevents government and private registries.”
Visa, Mastercard, and American Express announced in September that they would be creating separate categories to track firearm purchases. The anti-gunner lobby lauded the decision, claiming it would help the authorities identify “suspicious” sales that might lead to mass shootings. Critics argued that such a move would create a private de facto gun registry which could eventually be shared with the government.
Predictably, anti-gunner Democrats are not a fan of the proposed legislation. State Sen. Victor Torres, a former New York City transit detective, noted that “every weekend we hear about shootings in our counties, in our state, across the nation” and that Florida “should be more aware as to the purchasing of guns and ammunition.”
The bill argues that tracking the sales of firearms and ammunition “may frustrate the right to keep and bear arms and violate the reasonable privacy rights of lawful purchasers of firearms or ammunition.”
There are indications that those concerned about tracking gun purchases have reason to worry. The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) published a report detailing how Amalgamated Bank CEO Priscilla Sims Brown, who was instrumental in the push to track firearm sales, wishes to take this whole thing a step further.
The author cited an interview with the New York Times in which Sims Brown explained that this initiative is only the beginning. “We’re at the very early stages of this,” she said. “But as this is implemented, those scenarios will be used.”
To which “scenarios” is Sims Brown referring? The author explains:
The “scenarios” include “detection scenarios” in which a purchase prompts a bank to file a Suspicious Activity Report to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). There have been no guidelines on what any of that means or what purchases would be flagged. That’s because the MCC won’t identify what is in the customer’s shopping basket. The customer could have passed an FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check (NICS) verification to lawfully buy a firearm and ammunition. Or the purchase could be for camping supplies, waders, decoys, blinds and other outdoor gear for a hunting trip. The total cost could be flagged as “suspicious” since it might be an outlier on a customer’s purchase history.
Make no mistake – the anti-gunner lobby is working overtime to make it harder for Americans to “keep and bear arms.” Despite their claims, these methods have nothing to do with stopping mass shootings or other types of gun violence. They are using the understandable fear and outrage that comes after one of these atrocities is committed to push an agenda that is less about saving lives and more about controlling the lives of everyday people.
Hopefully, Florida will not be the only state to look at legislation barring these companies from collecting this type of data. It is not a stretch to imagine how this could be used against folks like us in the future, is it?
