On Thursday, November 2, the Assembly Consumer Protection Committee will hold a public hearing on Assembly Bill 468, a bill to prohibit the use of firearm-related merchant category codes.
In September 2022, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) approved a Merchant Category Code (MCC) for firearm retailers. Since the ISO’s decision, NRA-ILA has worked to alert financial industry stakeholders to gun owners’ concerns and urged state lawmakers and attorneys general to address this matter. To date, several states and their attorneys general have taken important steps to protect Americans’ Second Amendment rights and privacy. In the first half of 2023, several states enacted legislation prohibiting or discouraging use of the firearm retailer MCC.
Assembly Bill 468 “…prohibits a financial institution, as part of a payment card transaction, from requiring the use of a merchant category code that identifies the merchant as a firearms retailer. The bill also provides that the Department of Justice may not maintain a list of firearm purchasers based on information from background checks that DOJ performs and that no governmental entity may maintain a list of firearm owners.” The bill also prohibits a financial institution from discriminating "against a firearms retailer by declining a lawful payment card transaction based solely on the assignment or nonassignment of the firearms code."
The public hearing will be held at 10:31am tomorrow. Please encourage your friends, family, and other Second Amendment advocates to tell your lawmakers to support Assembly Bill 468. Please stay tuned to the NRA-ILA website and your inbox for updates as this legislation progresses.
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