California tracking firearms credit card use, but criminals — not so much

by Larry Keane

6:00am Monday, July 22, 2024

Remember just two short years ago when California officials apologized after a trove of private personal information of concealed carry permit holders was “leaked?” The sensitive information included the names, dates of birth, gender, race, driver’s license numbers and addresses of permit holders. That data leak also included the type of permit issued, indicating if the permit holder was a member of law enforcement or a judge.

The Los Angeles Times reported the leak was “larger than initially reported,” and that, “In addition to information from the concealed-carry permit applications, data on the Assault Weapon Registry, Handguns Certified for Sale, Dealer Record of Sale, Firearm Safety Certificate and Gun Violence Restraining Order dashboards were ‘also impacted,’” California Attorney General Rob Bonta stated at the time.

There should be no doubts that the gun control activists in charge in California cannot be trusted with sensitive and private information of law-abiding gun owners. But beginning July 1, anti-gun zealots like Gov. Gavin Newsom, AG Bonta and others will have even more private data on law-abiding Californians who exercise their Second Amendment rights.

The thought of what could happen in a state like California is chilling and alarming.

Credit card tracking code begins

There might soon be a significant increase in the number of cash sales seen at sporting goods stores and firearm retailers that offer firearms, ammunition, and recreational shooting sports and hunting supplies.

The Associated Press noted ATM machines are already popping up in some firearm stores. That’s because California became the first state to implement a merchant category code (MCC) for gun retailers that has been the pet project of gun control groups, the New York-based, Democratic-aligned Amalgamated Bank and even some in media.

Media personalities like Andrew Ross Sorkin promoted the flawed idea. Sorkin proposed the idea of cutting off gun purchases by throttling the use of credit cards back in 2018, when he published a column titled, “How Banks Could Control Gun Sales If Washington Won’t.” Sorkin’s idea is that enough financial pressure could be applied to credit card giants to deny lawful gun sales. Amalgamated Bank, described as “the Left’s Private Banker,” jumped on board with the scheme and pressured the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to adopt the code for credit card processors to use a few years ago.

Now the code has been created and banks and credit card processing giants like Visa, MasterCard and American Express who initially said they would implement the code before, are now correctly changing their minds and announcing “pauses” for the code’s implementation. That’s because numerous states — 16 in all thus far — have enacted laws banning the use of the firearm retailer-specific MCC, vastly outnumbering the three states that have announced they would use them. California is implementing the code first, but Colorado and New York have passed similar laws to move the process of implementation along.

In Washington, D.C., there are dueling efforts moving forward to both force the adoption of the firearm retailer MCC — by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other gun control allies — as well as to federally prohibit the use of the firearm code through NSSF-supported legislation introduced by U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.).

Flawed from the start

Law-abiding gun owners and those who want to shop at gun stores or hunting supply outlets should be concerned, and more open to paying with cash for their purchases. Not only is the code idea misguided and flawed, simply put it is another backdoor for gun control. It’s no longer “What’s in your wallet?,” as the popular credit card tagline goes. It’s now “Who’s in your wallet?”

Take, for example, the opinion of Visa CEO Al Kelly. While the MCC code was being considered, Kelly admitted flat out the code doesn’t work as gun control activists dream it would. “If [Visa’s Chief Communications Officer] K.C. Kavanagh goes into a gun store and buys three thermoses and a tent, and you go in and buy a rifle and five rounds of ammunition, all I know is you both went to the same gun store… But I don’t know what you bought.”

USA Today noted, “The codes are a way to classify businesses by the kinds of things they sell. It can be used by financial institutions to see how a purchase should be processed, but does not identify specific items purchased.”

And Bloomberg News, the media behemoth founded by gun control activist and failed presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg – who also bankrolls the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety, reported on the flawed dream of the firearm MCC, reiterating, “The payment network and its banking partners would have no idea if a gun-store customer is purchasing a… rifle or safety equipment.”

Implementing the firearm MCC is not the silver bullet to track down potential criminals that gun control activists want it to be. It’s wishful thinking — or California dreamin’ in the case of the first state to force the code into place.

Bad track record

The firearm MCC is a double-edged sword against effectively stopping criminals from committing heinous acts and crimes. Not only does it not work, the resulting lists and data on law-abiding Americans who freely exercise their constitutionally protected right to purchase and possess firearms is ripe for abuse. The massive data leak mentioned above of California concealed carry permit holders is just one example. An egregious and similar data hack occurred in New York. As CNN reported, “An interactive map showing the names and addresses of all handgun permit holders in New York’s Westchester and Rockland counties has infuriated many readers since it was posted Saturday on a newspaper’s website.”

In Washington, D.C., the federal government’s institutions that would be charged with using the firearm tracking code to spot “suspicious” activity do not exude confidence that the data would be securely and confidentially handled. There is no agency definition that defines what “suspicious” would mean, and given that there are more than 22 million new first-time gun owners in America, nearly the exact population of the state of Florida, there is going to be a lot of new purchaser behavior at firearm retailer stores. That includes purchases for new guns, ammunition for range visits and practice, safe storage and even training courses. All those would be flagged under the same code.

In addition, the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which Sorkin and Amalgamated Bank President and CEO Priscilla Sims Brown pushed as the agency to handle all those “suspicious activity reports” from the credit card companies, admitted to U.S. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) in a letter that it violated the Fourth Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens that protect against illegal search and seizure when it collected the credit card purchase history from banks and credit card companies of individuals who purchased firearms and ammunition in the days surrounding Jan. 6, 2020.

That should be a flashing red warning sign to all Americans. Treasury’s FinCEN had no cause, and sought the information without a warrant, to place these law-abiding citizens on a government watchlist only because they exercised their Second Amendment rights to lawfully purchase firearms and ammunition.

California Gov. Newsom loves nothing more than traveling around the country and talking about Gov. Newsom, including his gun control efforts to limit the rights of law-abiding citizens. That’s despite the fact that California ranks “Number 1 in gun control, and Number 1 in ‘active shooter incidents’ in 2023,” according to Breitbart News. Instead of pipe dream laws that don’t do anything to reduce crime and only impact law-abiding Californians, Gov. Newsom and state legislators should instead focus their efforts on putting criminals behind bars — including those who threaten to commit mass shootings — and keeping them there.

Republished with permission from NSSF.