Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed the legislation into law on Friday.
His office posted an announcement online declaring “Today, Governor Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 7054 and SB 214 to protect the personal finances of Floridians from government overreach.”
The state action prevents financial firms from enacting specific Merchant Category Codes to track firearm purchases and in essence create a gun registry. It also set up fines as punishment for companies violating the state’s consumer protection against establishing gun owner registration lists.
The initial momentum towards credit card companies tracking gun purchases came last August when the Giffords gun control group began lobbying major credit card companies. The effort was to convince them of the “need” to flag gun and ammunition purchases using special codes.
This push was quickly joined by anti-gun New York lawmakers.
It was just days later when the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) created the classification for weapons and ammunition purchases using credit cards. The September approval led to the launch of a dedicated code for retailers to record firearm sales.
It did not take long before corporate America fell in line with those opposed to Second Amendment protections for law-abiding citizens. In early September, Visa became the first to crack.
The financial giant consented to implementing the new merchant code to track firearm purchases in the name of “safety.” They offered the paltry defense of respecting “privacy rights” while implementing the codes.
Flash forward just a few months later, and by February the major companies had plans laid out for an April launch of the tracking system. Discover was the first to announce specific plans, telling Reuters that “we remain focused on continuing to protect and support lawful purchases on our network while protecting the privacy of cardholders.”
The new code, named “5723 — Gun and ammunition shops,” was set to roll out and become the standard. But something funny happened on the way to this Orwellian tracking system.
State lawmakers across the U.S. rose in a united protest. One by one, state capitals passed new legislation creating roadblocks for this program of suppressing the privacy rights of gun owners. As Second Amendment supporters rushed to prevent this corporate overreach, a clear signal was sent.
It would be possible to track sales in some areas that are opposed to gun rights, but at best the nation would be a patchwork quilt of disparate systems. This would undoubtedly cause great confusion and deep inconsistencies.
Before long, credit card companies which had quickly bowed to pressure from gun control groups caved to the united outcry of gun rights advocates.
Visa backed away, declaring that efforts to cancel or restrict the use of a specific code would create “significant confusion and legal uncertainty in the payments ecosystem.” The financial giant conceded that state lawmakers were successful in thwarting “the intent of global standards.”
Mastercard also chimed in, noting that there would be great “inconsistency” due to the number of states passing laws against the scheme. Discover said it put its plans on hold to remain in “alignment and interoperability with the industry.”
And American Express also enacted a pause on the system rollout.
Despite this apparent victory by gun rights supporters, there remains the possibility that financial giants may in the future cave once again to pressure from gun control groups. That is why it is imperative that states such as Florida continue to follow through on enacting specific laws to block these efforts from springing up again.
But as for now, the defeat of these multinational financial giants is a cause for celebration.
