Priscilla Sims Brown, CEO of Amalgamated Bank, isn’t afraid to support Democratic politics and progressive causes. The New York Post called her “the Left’s private banker.”
Sims Brown is especially pleased with herself after successfully lobbying the main international credit card standards organization to develop a special tracking code for gun store purchases. She’s curious about who’s buying what and why. It’s a ruse designed to prevent criminals from misusing firearms.
Fortunately for law-abiding Americans who support the Second Amendment, state and federal lawmakers are saying “Not so fast,” and proposing legislation to prevent such lawful purchases from being tracked.
Sims Brown’s goal is to have credit cards implement a special code to track purchases made at firearm retail stores by law-abiding Americans. She persuaded the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to develop a Merchant Category Code (MCC), and they relented.
She spoke with New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, a supporter of the scheme, and admitted that the code is just the start. “We’re just getting started,” Sims Brown told Sorkin.
“But as this is implemented, those scenarios will be used.”
She’s referring to “detection scenarios,” in which a purchase prompts a bank to submit a Suspicious Activity Report to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). There have been no guidelines as to what any of this entails or what purchases will be flagged.
This is due to the MCC’s inability to identify what is in the customer’s shopping basket. To lawfully purchase a firearm and ammunition, the customer could have passed an FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check (NICS) verification. Alternatively, you could buy camping supplies, waders, decoys, blinds, and other outdoor gear for a hunting trip. However, the total cost could be marked as “suspicious” because it is an outlier in a customer’s purchase history.
Even Bloomberg News, which is owned by gun control advocate and financier Michael Bloomberg, dismissed the idea, claiming that the code would not work. “The payment network and its banking partners have no idea whether a gun-store customer is buying…a rifle or safety equipment.”
The new MCC for gun store purchases was approved last September, so the implementation process is still in the works. Nonetheless, some CEOs of major credit card companies are speaking out.
Discover announced in April that it will begin using the gun store-specific code, making it the first major credit card company to do so. Discover has by far the smallest market share of the four major credit card companies, at around 4%, and other estimates put it at 2%, but the shift is still significant.
A Discover spokesperson was coy in announcing the code’s use. “We remain committed to continuing to protect and support lawful purchases on our network while protecting cardholder privacy,” the company said in a statement. “We were following industry best practices for consistent implementation.”
The Discover representative also hinted that other credit card companies will issue MCC gun store codes. Al Kelly is the CEO of Visa. Even Kelly admitted that the new codes will not be as effective as antigun activists claim in flagging purchases.
“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,” Kelly said.
On Visa’s website, a statement reads, “Many are advocating the use of MCCs to track gun sales as a potential tool in combating gun violence. That’s not what merchant codes are designed for, nor should they be.”
Mastercard and American Express have yet to comment more specifically about their plans to implement the tracking code.
There’s good news for supporters of the Second Amendment and those concerned about government agencies tracking their perfectly lawful behavior. Mississippi, West Virginia, and Florida are pioneering legislation to thwart the tracking scheme.
A bill is being considered in Mississippi to prohibit the use of the gun store MCC. House Bill 1110 was already overwhelmingly approved by the Mississippi House of Representatives, 87-26. The bill is expected to pass quickly in the state Senate.
In Florida, the Republican-controlled Senate Banking and Insurance Committee approved Senate Bill 214 that would target yet-to-be-enacted plans by some credit-card companies to create a gun store MCC. Credit card companies could be fined up to $10,000 per violation under this bill.
In West Virginia, Republican state Treasurer Riley Moore praised the House of Delegates for passing legislation that would prohibit any credit card company that tracks gun and ammunition purchases from bidding on state contracts.
There is also buzz in Washington, D.C., as federal efforts to block the tracking code gain traction, even as Members of Congress and U.S. Senators support other efforts to ensure financial companies do not discriminate against the lawful and constitutionally protected firearm industry.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) introduced the Firearm Industry Nondiscrimination (FIND) Act, which would prohibit corporations from profiting from taxpayer-funded federal contracts while discriminating against a constitutionally protected industry. The same legislation was introduced in the House of Representatives earlier this year by U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.).
In the Senate, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) introduced S. 293, the Fair Access to Banking Act. That bill would work to put an end to major banking institutions’ discriminatory lending practices, which seek to circumvent the legislative process and set social policy from the boardroom.
NSSF will keep a close eye on these legislative efforts to prevent boardroom gun control.