Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV) introduced the Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act on Tuesday to prohibit credit card companies from implementing a backdoor gun registry to track purchases.
Moore’s bill, introduced with 25 of his House colleagues, bans the use of a new, unique Merchant Category Code (MCC) for transactions involving firearms and ammunition. While financial institutions use these codes to organize data on other consumer purchases, Second Amendment restrictionists, including in the California legislature, could weaponize a unique code for guns and ammo to compile data on gun owners.
Moore’s bill would preempt state and local laws to protect privacy and Second Amendment rights.
“I’ve spent the better part of my short career in public service fighting financial institutions that push a political agenda,” Moore said. “Let me be clear: any attempt to collect data on Americans simply exercising their God-given rights is wrong, and I won’t stand for it.”
In 2022 during the Joe Biden administration, the International Standards Organization approved the creation of a new MCC specific to gun and ammunition stores.
In March 2023, Breitbart News’s AWR Hawkins reported that Visa and Mastercard pivoted amidst the pushback and announced they would not begin tracking gun and ammunition purchases with an MCC. But credit card companies created a new MCC in February 2024 to comply with a California law to track gun and gun-related purchases in the state.
Moore’s bill, if enacted, would prohibit states from creating a backdoor gun registry with information that could then be surrendered to governments.
“We’ve seen how the Biden Administration pressured financial institutions to hand over data on their customers, and the possibility of a private database of gun owners falling into the hands of a future anti-gun administration is unacceptable,” he said.
Privacy in Purchases Act BILL TEXT via Scribd
Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Andy Barr (R-KY), and Richard Hudson (R-NC) introduced identical legislation in the 118th Congress along with 123 cosponsors. Barr and Hudson return as lead cosponsors in the 119th Congress.
“The American people are fed up with gun grabbing liberals’ attempts to encroach on their Constitutionally protected rights,” Hudson said, adding he is “proud to join Congressman Moore in introducing legislation to protect the freedom and privacy of law-abiding gun owners.”
“In America, the right to privacy and the right to keep and bear arms are fundamental,” Barr added. “We must ensure that law-abiding citizens can make purchases without fear of unwarranted tracking or political discrimination. This legislation is about upholding our constitutional freedoms and preventing the misuse of financial data to target individuals exercising their Second Amendment rights.”
The National Shooting Sports Foundation, Gun Owners of America, the National Rifle Association, and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation all endorsed Moore’s legislation.
“Anti-gunners have repeatedly tried to weaponize financial institutions to de-bank the firearms industry and undermine the Second Amendment,” Aidan Johnston, Director of Federal Affairs for Gun Owners of America, said. “The recent abuse of Merchant Category Codes to track gun owners is just the latest example of the violation of our privacy. Thank you to Representatives Moore, Hudson, and Barr for introducing this legislation to prohibit the tracking and backdoor registration of firearm and ammunition sales.”
John Commerford, Executive Director of NRA-ILA, said implementation of a gun-specific MCC “is nothing more than an ill-conceived attempt to create a de facto national firearms registry. On behalf of millions of NRA members and gun owners nationwide, we thank Representatives Moore, Hudson, and Barr for protecting our Second Amendment rights and our privacy.”
Bradley Jaye is Deputy Political Editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter and Instagram @BradleyAJaye.
