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North Carolina Republican State Representative Reece Pyrtle submitted legislation removing merchant category codes from firearm and ammunition purchases completed in the state.
The bill submitted by Pyrtle, known as the Second Amendment Financial Privacy Act, would mandate that “no payment card network shall use a firearms code in connection with a payment card transaction involving a firearms merchant located in this state” or discriminate against a firearms merchant “based solely on the assignment or nonassignment of a firearms code.”
Pyrtle introduced the legislation roughly three years after the International Organization for Standardization, which is based in Switzerland, approved a new merchant category code for companies that sell firearms, allowing payment card processors to track such purchases.
The bill warns that the “surveillance would cause a significant chilling effect on individuals in North Carolina wishing to exercise their federal and state constitutional rights” to bear arms.
