Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy praised the pausing of what he called a “scheme” by major credit card issuers Visa, MasterCard and Discover to track firearm purchases. McCarthy slammed the gun tracking initiative and vowed that House Republicans would remain vigilant in opposing further efforts to track gun purchases.
The Speaker tweeted that the pause in the tracking program, which aimed to develop a special new Merchant Category Code (MCC) for the firearms and ammunition, was only a “step in the right direction.”
[Get the shirts: FREEDOM BABY and SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE]A step in the right direction. However, this plan to track lawful firearm purchases should be ended permanently.
— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) March 10, 2023
House Republicans will be closely monitoring this scheme. https://t.co/puvH38XC9v
McCarthy said he wants more than a pause, however. He wants the program “ended permanently.” In the tweet above, McCarthy wrote that “this plan to track lawful firearm purchases should be ended permanently. House Republicans will be closely monitoring this scheme.”
Anti-gun activists have pushed for the tracking in hopes that anomalous purchase patterns surfaced by the data could help prevent mass shootings. A 2022 report from the Public Policy Institute of California, McCarthy’s state, said that California was averaging a mass shooting every 8.3 days.
The credit card companies had been working to add the new code to the thousands of MCC categories already in use, such as those for lottery tickets and fast food. The goals was to have the new code approved by the International Organization for Standardization, described by Mead Metals as “an independent, non-governmental, international organization that develops standards to ensure the quality, safety, and efficiency of products, services, and systems.”
Merchant Category Code (MCC) Backgrounder:
A Merchant Category Code (MCC) is a four-digit code used to categorize businesses by the types of goods or services they provide. The MCC system was established by the credit card industry to help streamline and organize merchant transactions.
There are over 1,000 different MCCs, each representing a specific industry or type of business. Some examples of MCCs and their associated industries include:
- 5411: Grocery Stores, Supermarkets
- 5812: Restaurants, Fast Food
- 5999: Miscellaneous and Specialty Retail
- 7372: Computer Programming, Data Processing, and Integrated Systems Design
- 8999: Professional Services (not elsewhere classified)
- 7995: Betting, including Lottery Tickets, Casino Gaming Chips, Off-Track Betting, and Wagers at Race Tracks.
