Tomorrow, April 10, at 8:30 a.m., the Alabama House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee is scheduled to hear House Bill 389, a bill to protect the credit card purchase privacy rights of sportsmen.
Gun control extremists are using every possible avenue to disarm law-abiding sportsmen and gun owners, including how to uncover personal identifying information on who owns firearms in America. The latest tactic on this front is to track credit card purchases of firearms and ammunition.
In September of 2022, the International Organizations for Standardization (ISO) approved the creation of a new merchant category code (MCC) for firearm retailers to use when their customers use a credit card to purchase firearms and ammunition. Credit card companies have always used merchant codes, but previous codes were general with firearm store sales listed as general merchandise or sporting goods. The new codes are specific to firearms and ammunition. At the time big credit card companies like American Express, Mastercard, and Visa paused the implementation of MCCs.
Unfortunately, California, the state that never says no to an opportunity to attack law-abiding sportsmen and gun owners, passed legislation into law allowing credit purchases of firearms and ammunition to be tracked. Big credit card companies are working to comply with California’s new law.
Pro-gun legislators in several states have already introduced and passed legislation protecting its sportsmen’s credit card purchase privacy, and now it is Alabama’s turn.
HB 389 prohibits a financial institution from requiring merchants to use a merchant category code (MCC) to distinguish a firearms retailer from a general merchandise retailer or a sporting goods retailer. The bill also authorizes the Attorney General to investigate alleged violations of this act, to enforce this act by bringing an action to recover civil penalties, and to restrain and enjoin an individual or entity from violating this act.
Please use our Take Action button to email the committee members and urge them to vote “Yes” on HB 389. With credit card companies working to comply with California’s credit card tracking law, it is even more important that the Heart of Dixie protect its sportsmen and gun owners’ credit card purchase privacy.
Don’t forget to share this important alert with your family, friends, and fellow sportsmen. Ask them to contact the committee members and urge them to support HB 389. The committee needs to hear that Alabama is a sportsmen’s paradise and that it must protect the credit card privacy of its sportsmen by voting “Yes” on HB 389.
About the Sportsmen’s Alliance: The Sportsmen’s Alliance protects and defends America’s wildlife conservation programs and the pursuits – hunting, fishing and trapping – that generate the money to pay for them. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation is responsible for public education, legal defense and research. Its mission is accomplished through several distinct programs coordinated to provide the most complete defense capability possible. Stay connected to Sportsmen’s Alliance: Online, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
