The idea behind using merchant category codes (MCCs) to "track" gun sales has been around for a few years, and it was premised on the idea that banks could use the same tools they use to detect money laundering to detect that someone was about to go and commit a mass killing. Of course, this idea only makes sense if you only look at mass shooters and their buying tendencies without comparing them to the population as a whole, and even then, the idea falls apart quickly.
MCCs are store-specific, not item-specific. That means a credit card company can't tell if you bought a pile of guns or a fishing boat from Bass Pro Shops. All they can see is that you spent a lot of money at a store with a gun store MCC.
But no one is really comfortable with our financial institutions tracking our sales, judging our purchases as if they're some watchdog, rather than a service we use to finance purchases.
States have responded by banning them, but now the House has passed a federal ban, and the National Shooting Sports Foundation's Larry Keane isn't broken up about the impact of this on the code's greatest champion.
Someone get Andrew Ross Sorkin some Kleenex. He’s having a rough day.
Sorkin, who writes for The New York Times, is arguably the biggest supporter of the idea of implementing a firearm industry-specific Merchant Category Code (MCC) to track lawful purchases and flag so-called “suspicious” firearm-related commerce.
Distraught over the passage of the Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act last week by the U.S. House of Representatives, Sorkin immediately published his feelings. “In 2018, I wrote about common-sense ways the financial industry could help identify suspicious purchasing patterns before mass shootings occur.”
He continued to relay his disappointment in the House action on the bill, lazily blaming “politics.”
“The legislation is headed to the Senate. But a tool designed to help prevent deadly shootings has become entirely political,” Sorkin lamented.
Except it hasn’t. It wouldn’t. And it never was. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Advancing H.R. 1181 is a major step forward to protect law-abiding Americans and lawful exercisers of the Second Amendment from facing political attacks by rabid antigun, anti-Second Amendment activists not just in government, but also the boardrooms for many of the nation’s biggest banks.
NSSF praises the House passage of the Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act and thanks U.S. Reps. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.), Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), Andy Barr (R-Ky.) and Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) for their strong leadership in getting this major firearm industry priority legislation across the finish line in the House.
Delusional Dragnet
Sorkin initially sketched out his dream of cutting off lawful gun purchases by throttling the use of credit cards in 2018, when he published a column titled, “How Banks Could Control Gun Sales If Washington Won’t.” NSSF warned of the dangerousness of this proposal. Swipe, insert chip or tap a credit card and it just simply wouldn’t work for those attempting to legally purchase a firearm or ammunition. Sorkin’s folly was picked up and backed by all the usual gun control groups and antigun politicians who even introduced legislation that would require the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen) to give guidance to banks so they could report “suspicious financial activity.” Not surprisingly, no one ever detailed what would constitute “suspicious activity.”
Banking executives cast doubt on Sorkin’s scheme, even stating it flat out wouldn’t work.
And the reason they gave is the same one I gave above. The MCC is for a store. It doesn't look inside the shopping bag. They can't. Sorkin floated an idea, but it was always a ridiculous one. Sorkin might have had a point if gun stores only sold guns, but I have yet to set foot in one that did so. At a minimum, they sell ammo and accessories, none of which are the same thing as a firearm in and of itself, but most also sell things like outdoor gear like tents and hunting supplies.
That alone muddies the waters.
But the problem for Sorkin is that his idea would also create a third-party database of who all frequented gun stores. To a totalitarian nation, that's as good as a gun registry, and all it would take is a simple subpoena from a judge to gain access to it should the feds have something shaped like a need to access it.
Or an anti-gun judge who doesn't really care how probable the probable cause given actually is.
The fact that legislation made it through the House is important, but it needs to make it through the Senate, too. This needs to become law, then Sorkin can cry a lot more about the defeat, because like it or not, this was always political. The moment you start treating law-abiding citizens like would-be mass killers, it's going to become political. The moment you display your absolute ignorance about gun-buying behavior, for either mass killers or regular citizens, you make it political. The moment you concoct a brain-dead idea to track what law-abiding Americans do in any way, whether it's third-party services or cameras on every street corner, you make it political.
Sorkin can cope and seethe, for all I care.
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