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Credit Cards to track gun purchases

Scoop

.30-06
www.thetruthaboutguns.com
Major Credit Card Processors Agree to Use New Gun Store Transaction Code to Track Purchases

By Dan Zimmerman - September 11, 2022

On Friday, the International Organization for Standards announced that it had approved a new merchant category code for gun retailers. In other words, the ISO caved to longstanding pressure brought by the gun control industry and politicians including a group of US Senators to create the new code.

The ISO’s announcement was quickly followed by announcements from Visa, MasterCard and American Express that they would begin to use the new code to segregate gun store purchases. The big credit card companies had previously resisted pressure from gun control groups to segregate gun store transactions, but gave in when the ISO established the code.

The AP reports:
…the decision by Visa, the world’s largest payment processor, will likely provoke the ire of gun rights advocates and gun lobbyists, who have argued that categorizing gun sales would unfairly flag an industry when most sales do not lead to mass shootings. It joins Mastercard and American Express, which also said they plan to move forward with categorizing gun shop sales.

Visa said it would adopt the International Organization for Standardization’s new merchant code for gun sales, which was announced on Friday. Until Friday, gun store sales were considered “general merchandise.”

“Following ISO’s decision to establish a new merchant category code, Visa will proceed with next steps, while ensuring we protect all legal commerce on the Visa network in accordance with our long-standing rules,” the payment processor said in a statement.

Visa’s adoption is significant as the largest payment network, and with Mastercard and AmeEx, will likely put pressure on the banks as the card issuers to adopt the standard as well. Visa acts as a middleman between merchants and banks, and it will be up to banks to decide whether they will allow sales at gun stores to happen on their issued cards.

This is a big step in the gun control industry’s long push to privatize much of gun control after years of being frustrated at the federal level and, most recently, by the Supreme Court’s Bruen ruling.

In their fever dreams, the Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex envisions a vast surveillance system that will scrutinize and report on “suspicious” gun purchasing activity. They’ve sold this thinly-veiled anti-gun initiative as a way for banks to cooperate with police to stop mass shootings and gun trafficking.

From Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown . . .

“Today’s announcement is a critical first step towards giving banks and credit card companies the tools they need to recognize dangerous firearm purchasing trends – like a domestic extremist building up an arsenal — and report them to law enforcement,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “But this is only the first step. Now it’s vital that merchants and banks implement this code swiftly, before more guns end up in the wrong hands.”

“These new merchant codes will help banks and financial institutions track suspicious and potentially illegal gun purchases,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action. “It takes all of us to tackle our gun violence epidemic which is why we’re grateful for Amalgamated Bank’s leadership in this effort and call for all other banks and financial institutions to follow suit.”

There are more than a few problems with this, however. First, who will get the new code? Bob’s Gun Shop down the street almost surely will. But what about Bass Pro Shops? How about Academy Sports?

Second, the merchant code won’t be used only for gun purchases. It will be used for all charges by retailers identified as gun sellers. So if you buy a flat of shotgun shells for dove season or a new scope for your deer rifle, those transactions will be blended in with everything else processed by your local gun store. The code won’t provide item level detail.

Third, the gun control industry and their friends in the federal government expect banks to scrutinize purchases and report anything “suspicious” to the proper law enforcement authorities. Banks are wholly ill-equipped to do anything approaching that on a consistent and reliable basis.

Keep in mind that they won’t have item-level detail in these charge transactions. They won’t be able to tell the difference between one purchase of 15 GLOCK 19s from another transaction of the same amount for a Beretta 687 shotgun. And banks won’t be able to sift and sort magazine, optics and ammo purchases from transactions for firearms.

That brings us to the final problem; signal to noise. Banks will set up algorithms to flag supposedly suspicious transactions or buying patterns. They’ll then report them to police. But that will likely mean tens or even hundreds of thousands of reports every year. Police won’t be able to sort through all of the garbage to find anything that will be actionable on the tiny number of transactions that may be worth following up on.

And then there will be the response by gun buyers. Most will continue to buy the way they always have. That’s because most — meaning over 99% — are perfectly legal.

Others, also legal purchasers, but those who don’t want anyone reviewing their transaction histories, will either spread purchases over a number of cards or, more likely, buy strictly with cash. They’ll consider the move by the banks to be a pseudo registry and choose not to participate.

They will, of course, be right. The goal here is to create a public-private partnership to monitor the gun-buying activities and habits of as many Americans as possible.

In the end, the code itself and its initial use won’t affect or inconvenience America’s gun owners much, if at all. At least for now.

But this is a first step toward a larger surveillance system that’s ultimately aimed at controlling and deplatforming as many aspects of the firearms industry as possible. It could also be used to isolate and “other-ize” firearms owners while limiting or cutting off their access to guns through the channels they’ve become accustomed to.

Meanwhile, cash is still legal. Expect to see far more people in your local gun store pulling out a wad of samolians when it’s time to pay for their purchases. <-- :thumbsup: Scoop --

Oh, and an 3D printer is less than the cost of a Taurus G3.

 
That's why some want a cashless society, so they can track EVERYTHING. This is why weekly I put just enough in the bank to cover what I need done and the rest is cash in my pocket. Can't track it or hack it. And yes I rathole what I don't need for my daily life.
 
Another “good idea” that was never actually thought through from the beginning.

The credit card companies get 3% on those transactions, and when all those transactions start happening in cash they are going to lose millions of dollars. This will totally backfire on them and provide no additional security to anyone.

It’s going to wind up like those little stickers in California that read, “This facility is known by the state of California to contain material which may cause cancer Or other reproductive harm….California Prop 65”

Every public building in the state has one of those signs now. The lawyers insisted they be put there to cover their butt. There’s millions of dollars of those signs out there now and they are absolutely worthless. We get the same sign on a coffee shop that we do on a chemical processing plant.
 
^ You are absolutely correct caddmann.

I'm curious whether that also affects debit cards. Not that it matters.

I have thought about this, and while I can think of a few firearms that I have purchased using a card when it's not at a local store, my local store doesn't take credit cards anyway. He has a sign on the front door right in front of your face that tells you they don't accept credit cards. You can't miss the sign. And even if you do, he'll tell you to hike down to the other end of the street to the bank and bring cash.

And there are people that have stopped keeping money in the bank anyway. I know several who will withdraw their entire payday and only leave enough money in it to keep the account open.

Actually, it's not money while it's in the bank anyway. It's nothing more than a digital number assigned to it.
 
That's why some want a cashless society, so they can track EVERYTHING. This is why weekly I put just enough in the bank to cover what I need done and the rest is cash in my pocket. Can't track it or hack it. And yes I rathole what I don't need for my daily life.


That will go along with the mark of the beast mentioned in the Bible.
 
I'm curious whether that also affects debit cards. Not that it matters.

I would predict that debit cards will be included.
Note that they characterize the banks as payment network and card issuers. So, I expect them to cast the widest web.
 
Well I believe that three-quarters of the guns and ammo that I’ve purchased, including supplies and accessories, were purchased on my Visa card.

I think that’s probably a poor idea in the future. The way things are going with brandon printing fake money, we’re going to be on the barter system anyhow.
 
The last 6-8 guns I've bought have been from Buds. Sadly they all fell overboard as I was opening the boxes. Guess I shouldn't boat on windy days wearing oven mits
 
The last 6-8 guns I've bought have been from Buds. Sadly they all fell overboard as I was opening the boxes. Guess I shouldn't boat on windy days wearing oven mits

I've heard so many stories like that. I know I've also been a victim of poor seamanship.
I'm thinking that there must be a great market for water safety education aimed at gun owners.

Here's a picture of me after my mishap taken by the Sheriff Office Helicopter. They saved my boat but not my guns. :doh:

images
 
I would just like to know if there are any credit cards out there that specifically do NOT take part in this baloney? I like the option of ordering ammunition online, and would just about be willing to have a card used only for ammunition/firearm online purchases. Take care. Tom Worthington
 
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