A national debate has emerged over gun sale tracking as states adopt conflicting laws regarding the use of retail codes for firearms transactions. As reported earlier, a California law went into effect today that mandates credit card networks like Visa and Mastercard to assign special retail codes to gun stores, enabling banks to track their sales. Advocates believe this measure could help identify suspicious purchases and prevent mass shootings.
Conversely, new laws in Georgia, Iowa, Tennessee and Wyoming prohibit the use of such codes. These states are among 17 with Republican-led legislatures that have enacted measures to restrict or ban the tracking of gun store sales through specific category codes and protect the privacy of its citizens.
“The merchant category code is the first step in the banking system saying, ‘Enough! We’re putting our foot down. You cannot use our system to facilitate gun crimes,’” Hudson Munoz, executive director of Guns Down America, an advocacy group supporting the tracking codes, told the Altoona Mirror.
However, opponents argue that these codes could lead to unjustified suspicion of lawful gun buyers. Lawrence Keane, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation and a contributor to TTAG, expressed concerns that the retail code could be a preliminary move by gun-control advocates to restrict the legal commerce of firearms.
“We view this as a first step by gun-control supporters to restrict the lawful commerce in firearms,” Keane said.
The debate over these tracking measures reflects broader partisan divides on gun policy. Democratic-led states like Colorado and New York have joined California in requiring the new tracking codes, while Republican-led states have pushed back with legislation to ban them.
The controversy over retail codes for gun sales is part of a larger national discourse on gun violence. Recently, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared gun violence a public health crisis, noting a rise in firearm-related deaths, which exceeded 48,000 in 2022. This declaration has been justifiably met with criticism from the NRA and other gun rights advocates.
States are also divided on other gun policies with freedom and responsibility winning out in Republican-led states. For instance, Louisiana will soon become the 29th state to allow residents to carry concealed guns without a permit. In contrast, Democratic-led New Mexico has introduced stricter gun control measures, including a seven-day waiting period for gun purchases, more than double the federal background check period.
This legislative tug-of-war extends to responses to mass shootings. Following a tragic incident in Maine where 18 people were killed, the state’s Democratic-led legislature enacted various gun restrictions. Meanwhile, after school shootings in Iowa and Tennessee, Republican legislatures have moved to allow more trained teachers to carry firearms in classrooms.
The new California law requires credit card networks to make the firearms code available to financial institutions by Monday. These institutions then have until May 1 to categorize their business clients accordingly. Visa has already updated its merchant data manual to comply with the law. Colorado and New York have aligned their laws to take effect next May.
Critics, such as Dan Eldridge, owner of Maxon Shooter’s Supplies in Chicago, argue that the merchant code may drive more gun buyers to use cash to maintain privacy.
“Viewed most benignly, this code is an effort to stigmatize gun owners,” Eldridge told WISN News. “But a more worrisome concern is that this is another private sector end run around the prohibition against the federal government creating a gun registry.”
Iowa state Sen. Jason Schultz, a Republican sponsor of legislation banning the firearms code, voiced fears that federal agents could misuse purchase data to infringe on Second Amendment rights.
“States are going to have to make a choice whether they want to follow California or whether they’d like to support the original intent of the U.S. Constitution,” Schultz told WISN.
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