(TheRedAlertNews.com) – The National Rifle Association has reacted strongly to announcements that the biggest credit card companies will introduce special merchant codes for gun stores to track firearm purchases.
The development became possible after, on Friday, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) decided to approve the establishment of merchant codes for gun retailers in the United States.
That was followed by a statement by Visa Inc. on Saturday, which made it clear that the payments giant will implement the ISO’s new codes for US firearm stores.
Visa joined Mastercard Inc. and the American Express Company, who had said in advance that they would introduce the codes for gun stores as soon as the ISO approved it.
The new policy allowing the tracking of gun sales will not apply to big-box retailers selling firearms.
The decision of the ISO and the respective declarations by the credit card companies that they will go ahead to put the new merchant code into use has been met with condemnation by the defenders of Second Amendment rights, Fox Business reported.
Some Second Amendment advocates have cautioned that the new policy will “target legal gun purchases” since the merchant codes could only indicate the type of merchant, not the items purchased.
For instance, buying a gun safe could be considered a large gun shop purchase because the item itself is expensive. However, a gun safe is deemed “part of responsible gun ownership.”
The National Rifle Association did not hesitate to denounce the creation of the new merchant codes and their upcoming implementation by Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.
“The [credit card industry’s] decision to create a firearm-specific code is nothing more than a capitulation to anti-gun politicians and activists bent on eroding the rights of law-abiding Americans one transaction at a time,” NRA spokesman Lars Dalseide said.
The ISO, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express were pressured to adopt the new policy by two of the largest government workers’ pension funds in the nation, which are based in California and New York.
A report by Fox News emphasizes that the new merchant codes for firearm retailers are a “major win” for gun control activists who claim that the ability to track the sales of “suspicious amounts” of items sold by gun stores would help prevent mass shootings.
That is despite the arguments of Second Amendment defenders who stress that most firearms sales do not lead to mass shootings.
The report predicts that, now that the credit card companies have agreed to label gun store sales, they will be pressured by the gun control lobby to ban such purchases with their credit cards altogether.
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