Visa Inc., a payment processor, announced late Saturday that it would start classifying sales at gun stores separately. It’s a significant victory for gun control proponents who claim it will make it easier to monitor suspicious spikes in gun sales that could signal the beginning of a mass shooting. However, gun rights proponents have argued that this action would unfairly categorize legal gun sales since most deals do not result in mass shootings.
According to Visa, I will adopt. The new merchant code for gun sales was released on Friday by the International Organization for Standardization. Gun store sales were categorized as “general merchandise” up until Friday. The payment processor issued a statement, “Following ISO’s decision to establish a new merchant category code, Visa will proceed with the following steps, ensuring we protect all legal commerce on the Visa network following our long-standing rules.
Being the most significant payment network, Visa’s adoption of the code is substantial and will likely increase pressure on Mastercard and American Express to follow suit. In recent weeks, gun control proponents have achieved significant victories. New York City officials and pension funds pressured the ISO and banks to adopt this code.
In California and New York, two of the nation’s most significant public pension funds are pushing the biggest credit card companies to create sales codes specifically for firearm-related sales that could flag suspect purchases or make it easier to track how guns and ammunition are sold. Almost all purchases now have a merchant category code, including those from supermarkets, clothing stores, coffee shops, and a wide range of other retailers.
“Your credit card company has a unique code for those retailers when you pay for groceries or an airline ticket. According to common sense, the same regulations should apply to ammunition and gun stores, according to New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain who attributes the deadly violence in his city to the widespread use of firearms.
Brad Lander, the city’s comptroller, claimed that using it as a tool to combat gun violence was both ethical and practical. Sadly, credit card companies have not provided support for this easy-to-use, valuable, and potentially life-saving device. Before announcing Visa, Lander recently said, “The time has come for them to do so.
