The US’ National Rifle Association (NRA) lashed out at Visa Inc. after the world’s largest payment processor signaled readiness to categorize sales at gun shops separately. Visa’s move was followed by Mastercard Inc. and American Express Co.
In response, NRA spokesman Lars Dalseide argued that, “The [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.”
He spoke after Visa pledged on Saturday to use the International Organization for Standardization’s (IOS) new merchant code for firearm sales, which was announced earlier this week. The gun store sales were previously dubbed as “general merchandise”.
“Following the IOS’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 company said in a statement.
Mastercard, which followed suit, announced that “we now turn our focus to how it will be implemented by merchants and their banks as we continue to support lawful purchases on our network while protecting the privacy and decisions of individual cardholders.”
As for American Express, it earlier pledged that when the IOS develops a new code, the company would work with third-party processors and partners on its implementation.
New York City Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, for his part, backed the move, explaining that, “When you buy an airline ticket or pay for your groceries, your credit card company has a special code for those retailers. It’s just common sense that we have the same policies in place for gun and ammunition stores.”
While gun control supporters argue that the IOS’s move will help track suspicious surges of gun sales that could be a prelude to a mass shooting, firearm rights advocates insist that tracking sales at gun stores would unfairly target legal gun purchases. They claim that merchant codes just track the type of merchant where the credit or debit card is used, not the actual items purchased.
Gun control advocates, however, point to the fact that a week before the 2016 Pulse Nightclub mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, the gunman purchased more than $26,000 worth of guns and ammunition using credit cards. The shooting claimed the lives of at least 49 people.
This year alone, the US has seen more than 200 mass shootings, including 27 at schools, according to the Gun Violence Archive. On May 24 in Uvalde, Texas, an 18-year-old wielding an AR-15 automatic weapon slaughtered 19 schoolchildren less than two weeks after a white supremacist in Buffalo killed ten African-Americans with a Bushmaster XM-15. The weapons used in both incidents were purchased legally, authorities said.
In the wake of mass shootings, a Politico-Morning Consult poll conducted in late June indicated that at least 48% of respondents actively support stricter regulations related to gun control, and 18% partially support them.