Two dozen Republican attorneys general have sent a letter to Visa, Mastercard, and American Express demanding the credit card companies abandon plans to track gun sales in the United States through firearm-specific transaction codes.
Credit card companies face pressure from gun control groups and lawmakers sympathetic to their cause to adopt new merchant category codes (MCC) for firearms, which now fall into the “general merchandise” category.
This, in turn, was prompted by a decision on the part of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), a Switzerland-based group that sets and monitors quality standards for various industries, to establish firearm-specific codes.
Reacting to the ISO decision, Visa said in a statement that it would “proceed with next steps, while ensuring we protect all legal commerce on the Visa network in accordance with our long-standing rules.”…