The merchant category codes demanded by gun control groups that were announced to great fanfare last fall are now in limbo after major credit card companies, including Visa and Mastercard, announced on Wednesday that they’re halting their rollout of the codes in response to a number of bills filed in red states that bar the use of the codes and promise fines for those credit card companies that use them.
The companies have never really been on board with the category code since the far-left Amalgamated Bank and gun control activists began lobbying for the International Standardization Organization to create one several years ago. The anti-gunners claim the code will help prevent mass shootings by requiring the companies to flag “suspicious transactions” at firearms retailers, but both Visa and Mastercard executives have said the codes don’t identify specific purchases, and the responsibility to flag any transactions deemed suspicious is more about reducing banking fraud and other financial crimes. At the very least, the legislation both companies referenced in today’s decision may have given the companies an easy out for a scheme they were never really on board with in the first place.
“There are bills advancing in several states related to the use of this new code,” a spokesman for Mastercard said in a statement Thursday. If passed, the proposals would create an “inconsistency” in how the code is applied by merchants and others, he said. “It’s for that reason that we have decided to pause work on the implementation of the firearms-specific MCC.”
By Cam Edwards
