MCC’s

Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) classify merchants and businesses by the type of goods or services provided.  Most businesses have one (1) code that covers all purchases.  Historically firearms and ammo purchases were included under a general sporting goods code (5941) under the MCC.

Financial Services companies such as credit card companies use these codes.

The International Standards Organization approved creation of a separate code for guns and ammo, under pressure from the gun control activists, worldwide.

The Biden administration, of course, pushed American financial institutions to adopt this, which is a backdoor into a gun registry.

At the individual state level, California Governor Gavin Newsom became the first governor in the country to enact the MCC firearm credit card code. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis followed suit.  New York Gov. Kathy Hochul joined in by becoming the third state to enact the firearm retail store MCC. 

Hochul expressed the real reason for the code change: “We’re also going to require credit and debit card companies to track purchases at gun dealerships, and make it (possible), in turn, for us to monitor the sale of guns and ammunition.” 

As usual, this effort of the gun grabbing left has lots of holes in it, the main one being that one (1) code applies to all purchases at that business.

Even the anti 2A Bloomberg News reported: “The payment network and its banking partners would have no idea if a gun-store customer is purchasing a [firearm] or safety equipment.”

Hochul suggests NYS can flag “suspicious” purchasing behavior.  A “suspicious” purchase” would prompt a bank to file a Suspicious Activity Report to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.  However, the banks haven’t defined what would be a suspicious purchase, in this case.

Are all purchases under the new code ‘suspicious?’  Hochul would say yes!

Will buying boxes of shotgun shells, waders, decoys and a hunting license at a local retailer be flagged with the MCC.

To remedy this, the Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act (PPPA), was introduced by Representative Riley Moore (R-WV) and 25 House colleagues.   It would prohibit a credit card network from requiring firearms retailers to use or assign a special merchant category code that distinguishes such a retailer from a general-merchandise retailer or a sporting-goods retailer.  A firearms retailer may not be assigned any merchant category code that distinguishes the gun dealer from a general-merchandise retailer or a sporting-goods retailer.

Not only would this protect gun owners from one form of government intrusion, it would eliminate a lot of bureaucratic created confusion. 

A similar bill, HR 7450, was introduced in a previous session of Congress, but it did not come up for a vote.  The new version does not yet have a bill number, as of this writing.  

2A defenders are encouraged to write their congressperson to support this bill.

NYS Congress printable .pdf