NRA-ILA | Tennessee: Gun Owner Credit Card Data Privacy Bills Introduced

This week, Senate Bill 2223/House Bill 2762 were introduced as companion bills by Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-SD27) and Representative Rusty Grills (R-HD77). These critical pieces of NRA-backed legislation will help ensure financial privacy of firearm owners when utilizing credit cards to purchase firearms, firearm parts, ammunition, and components, by prohibiting the use of firearm specific merchant category codes by payment processors. Anti-gun activists, in states like California, have already mandated the use of these codes and it is important that Tennessee takes this critical step to protect financial privacy.

In the Fall of 2022, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) approved a Merchant Category Code (MCC) for firearm retailers. MCCs are used by payment processors (like Visa and Mastercard) and other financial services companies to categorize transactions. MCCs enable payment processors and banks to identify, monitor, and collect data on certain types of transactions. Before the ISO decision, firearm retailers fell under the MCC for sporting goods stores or miscellaneous retail.

Collecting firearm retailer financial transaction data amounts to surveillance and registration of law-abiding gun owners. Those promoting this scheme are in favor of firearm and gun owner registrations. Therefore, it should be assumed that the goal of this program is to share all collected firearm retailer MCC data with government authorities and potentially private third parties that may include gun control organizations and anti-gun researchers.

At this time, SB 2223 and HB 2762 have not been scheduled for a hearing, but they are anticipated to be scheduled after assignments to committees. Stay tuned to your inbox and www.nraila.org for updates concerning your Second Amendment Rights and hunting heritage in Tennessee.