The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is encouraging American gun owners to support a new House bill which would ban the use of special “Merchant Category Codes” (MCC) which track gun and ammunition purchases made with credit cards.

The legislation, known as the Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act (PPPA), was introduced by freshman U.S. Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV) and 25 House colleagues. It is a response to efforts by anti-gunners to track such sales, which essentially create a backdoor gun registry.

“Our hats are off to Rep. Moore and his colleagues,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Gun control advocates have tried all manner of privacy invasions over the years, and tracking personal purchases of legal, constitutionally-protected products is among the worst examples of such insidious efforts.”

The legislation prohibits a credit card network from requiring firearms retailers to use or assign a special merchant category code that distinguishes such a retailer from a general-merchandise retailer or a sporting-goods retailer.

In addition, a covered entity or its agent may not assign to a firearms retailer any merchant category code that distinguishes the gun dealer from a general-merchandise retailer or a sporting-goods retailer.

“The effort to establish a special four-digit MCC dates back to the Joe Biden era when the International Standards Organization approved creation of such a code,” Gottlieb recalled. “It is unconscionable for financial institutions to create a system for collecting this sort of data on law-abiding citizens, so government can monitor their activities. This is the United States, not a police state, and there is no place in a free society for the collection of such information.

“It is none of anyone’s business what honest citizens buy and own,” he observed, “and it is certainly none of the government’s business to micro-manage their lives. Passage of the PPPA will prevent such nonsense from becoming part of our government framework.”

Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (www.ccrkba.org) is one of the nation’s premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States.