Governors Eric Holcomb (R-IN) and Spencer Cox (R-UT) both approved legislation last week that bars credit card companies from tracking firearm purchase information in their states.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) announced on March 18, 2024, that the bills had been signed into law.
The Indiana bill was HB 1084 and the Utah bill was HB 406.
“The laws are designed to protect the privacy of lawful and private firearm and ammunition purchases from being abused for political purposes by corporate financial service providers and unlawful government search and seizure of legal and private financial transactions,” NSSF noted.
Texas, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, and West Virginia have implemented comparable bans on credit card companies monitoring firearm-related data.
On September 11, 2022, Visa caved to pressure from gun control groups and New York Democrats by consenting to identify firearm and ammunition transactions through a new merchant category code.
The Associated Press noted that Mastercard and other prominent credit card companies also committed to flagging gun purchases.
The introduction of the new code faced significant resistance, and on March 9, 2023, Breitbart News revealed that Visa and Mastercard had reversed course, declaring they would postpone any plans to monitor gun and ammunition purchases. Discover also joined in, suspending its intentions to track gun sales.
Yet, on February 13, 2024, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express were implementing a new merchant category code to monitor firearms in California, in accordance with a recent state legislation.
The Washington Examiner outlined that the legislation mandating credit card tracking of gun transactions will come into force in California in 2025.
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