CHARLESTON — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey is urging Visa, Mastercard and American Express to reconsider their decision to apply a new merchant code to distinguish firearms purchases from other general merchandise sales.
West Virginia Treasurer Riley Moore also has been critical of the plan.
Morrisey sent letters September 15 to the companies’ CEOs.
Moore
“This decision appears to be a cave-in to pressures from radical gun control groups and those who are anti Second Amendment,” Morrisey's letters state. “Also, this decision is especially concerning in that it appears to surrender to activist shareholder pressure from certain pension funds.
"This is another example of unreasonable demands of the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) agenda.”
On Sept. 9, a panel of the International Organization for Standardization – a nongovernmental organization that develops a wide range of industrial and commercial standards – approved a petition by New York-based Amalgamated Bank for the creation of a new “merchant category code” (MCC) for gun retailers. Merchant category codes are used by credit card companies to identify the type of business in which a merchant is engaged.
Amalgamated Bank’s petition was supported by a wide range of gun control advocacy groups and liberal politicians, including U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Advocates are urging the nation’s major credit card companies to use the code to begin monitoring gun and ammunition purchases. If they flag something that they believe seems odd, they could then notify law enforcement and share that data to investigate or make an arrest.
Morrisey's letters say the decision made by these companies “displays hostility to your cardholders that choose to exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, especially at time when violent crime is on the rise.”
Visa, Mastercard and American Express are among the world’s largest payment processors. Morrisey said giving gun sales its own category puts an unnecessary red flag on otherwise legitimate purchases. Currently, gun store sales are under “general merchandise” as far as credit card purchases are concerned.
“We will continue to analyze this situation and, based on that analysis and your response, determine how best to proceed,” Morrisey wrote in the letters. “This office is committed to ensuring that your company is prohibited from any practice that discriminates against or in any way penalizes any business subject to the new merchant code and any individuals impacted by your decision.”
Moore called the idea another attempt by liberal lawmakers to undermine citizens’ Second Amendment rights.
“The radical D.C. liberals are once again colluding with their woke corporate allies to undermine our Constitutional freedoms and American way of life,” Moore said in a press release. “This proposed scheme to track gun and ammunition sales is the next step toward a national gun registry and could illegally allow the federal government to track and monitor our private lives.”
Moore said the idea not only flies in the face of Americans’ Second Amendment rights but could potentially violate laws prohibiting the federal government from establishing a national gun registry.
“Lawmakers like Elizabeth Warren know this type of tracking system couldn’t pass Constitutional muster if implemented by Congress, so instead they’re outsourcing this data collection and tracking to their allies in private industry,” Moore said. “This is a clear end-run around our citizens’ Second Amendment rights and it must be stopped either by the credit card companies that have been asked to implement it or by law if necessary.
Moore said this proposal is another example of woke capitalism.
“I have long been saying woke capitalism, ESG regulations and these ‘socially responsible’ business schemes are nothing but a slippery slope designed to force us to bend the knee to these extremist social agendas,” Moore said. “This credit card gun tracking is the latest step in their attempt to force West Virginians to comply with their anti-American agenda.”