By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
House Republicans, with only five Democrats joining them, passed HR 1181, the “Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act”—a bill to prohibit financial institutions from using special tracking codes to monitor lawful firearm-related purchases—sending a signal that gun owner privacy is not up for grabs.
In an announcement from the Republicans, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.VA.) explained, “The Second Amendment is not a second-class right. Americans should never have their lawful firearm purchases tracked by financial institutions or payment processors. The creation of a separate merchant category code for gun stores at the behest of the Democrat-affiliated Amalgamated Bank opens the door to creating an unconstitutional backdoor gun registry and discrimination against law-abiding gun owners. My bill stops this dangerous overreach, protects consumers’ financial privacy, and ensures that a backdoor federal gun registry can never be created through credit card transaction data. I’m proud the House has acted to defend both the Second Amendment and Americans’ right to privacy.”
The Daily Caller has identified the five defecting Democrats as Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Don Davis of North Carolina, Jared Golden of Maine and Adam Gray of California. However, they all joined fellow Democrats in supporting a “motion to recommit.”
The bill has 132 co-sponsors, all Republicans.
House Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain said in a prepared statement, “The Left could not pass a national gun registry through Congress, so now they want banks and credit card companies to do the dirty work for them. That is how Democrats target constitutional rights: quietly and without due process. Today, Republicans stood together and said ’NO.’ We will not allow the Crazy Left to target your constitutional rights. We will, instead, stand firmly on the side of common sense and your constitutional rights.”
The vote was hailed by Mark Oliva, spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
“NSSF is grateful to the U.S. House of Representatives for the bipartisan vote to pass H.R. 1181, the Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act,” said Oliva, NSSF managing director of Public Affairs. “Congress is taking concrete steps to ensure that credit card companies cannot conspire with antigun politicians to create back-door watchlists of law-abiding Americans who are simply exercising their Second Amendment rights to legally acquire firearms and ammunition.
“This is already law in 20 states,” he continued. “This insidious plan to collect firearm purchase history was hatched by Amalgamated Bank and Andrew Ross Sorkin as an underhanded means to force gun control outside of legislative channels through ‘woke’ corporate policies. Three states – California, Colorado and New York – require Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) to be collected and monitor legal firearm and ammunition purchases. That is unconscionable.
“Former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen dodged Congress’s questions of the Biden administration illegally collecting the firearm transaction history of lawful gun buyers in an Orwellian move to chill and suppress Second Amendment liberties,” Oliva recalled. “Days later, President Biden’s Treasury Department admitted to Sen. Tim Scott that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), in fact, illegally surveilled Americans purchasing firearms and ammunition.”
