While the rest of the nation moved in one direction, California lawmakers decided to buck the logical trend and head the exact opposite way. At issue is the now-stymied push to require large financial firms which issue credit cards to track gun purchases.
The effort from gun control zealots began last year and gained almost immediate traction. Visa, Mastercard and American Express quickly caved into pressure from activist groups and moved towards implementing a new sales code for gun transactions.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) of Geneva approved the new merchant category code (MCC) in September, and by the new year financial companies were ready to roll it out.
Then Second Amendment advocates stepped in.
Realizing quickly that this move would result in a de facto gun registry, lobbying organizations applied pressure to lawmakers and the financial institutions to reverse their momentum. One by one, states stepped up and passed laws against this registry, and in March the hard work paid off.
Visa, Mastercard and American Express all announced that they had “paused” their movement toward the MCC. They realized the unworkability of having a patchwork of regulations from state-to-state governing credit card transactions.
All was well, except in California.
AB 1587 has the exact opposite goal. This week, the state Senate Banking and Financial Institutions Committee will hear the proposal to turn back the clock and require financial institutions to implement MCCs to track gun sales. These would be designated specifically for firearm and ammunition retailers, exactly what was thwarted on a national level earlier this year by Second Amendment advocates.
This is simply anti-gun zealots throwing a temper tantrum.
There is no logical reason for California to move in this direction when the rest of the nation does not and will not follow. It is the unworkable patchwork quilt of regulations that financial institutions have already wisely rejected.
