New York State is set to further restrict law-abiding gun owners from the free exercise of the Second Amendment.
This time, lawmakers are targeting credit card companies, forcing them to make it easier for government to see what kind of guns and ammo you buy.
At the end of the session, legislators passed a bill (S8479) requiring credit card companies to use unique category codes for gun and ammunition purchases.
These four-digit ‘merchant category codes’ enable tracking of people buying guns and ammunition. This is on top of one of the most onerous gun permit processes in the country and having to re-certify in a security check every time you buy ammunition even after you have a permit for a gun.
State Senator Zellnor Myrie (D-20) and Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages (D-22) sponsored the legislation. They claim this is a way of tracking credit card purchases that are currently not well documented while working to address gun crime. How it would address criminal behavior is left unexplained.
Sixteen states have banned the tracking of credit card purchases on gun and ammunition purchases, but states such as New York continue to march against law-abiding New Yorkers exercising their inalienable Second Amendment rights.
The states that have banned tracking with ‘Second Amendment Financial Privacy’ laws are Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Iowa, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Utah.
New York Democrats position this tracking as a public safety effort although it is well known that criminals don’t generally obtain their guns or ammunition by legal and traceable means.
Many opponents of the credit card tracking legislation believe this new law is an effort to intimidate law-abiding gun owners.
Tom King, president of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, criticized the bill for failing to adequately address gun violence.
“It’s a really bogus attempt to try to shame gun owners into not practicing their Second Amendment rights,” said King. King said he could foresee legal challenges to the bill.
There are legitimate fears of law-abiding gun owners and businesses being tracked by the government. Individuals and businesses fear being ‘de-banked’ as was done in Canada during the trucker’s protests. There, if the Trudeau government didn’t like who you were supporting with your donations, Trudeau misused the law to effectively remove you from the banking system and froze your bank account.
Democrats claim in the bill memo that the law is a “first step towards facilitating the collection of valuable financial data that could help law enforcement in countering the financing of terrorism efforts.” How is not explained.
The Albany Times Union said in a recent editorial, “Nor is it clear, in the vague language of the legislation which purchases would be considered suspicious and how or when that information would be provided to police. Which law enforcement agency would receive the data? That, too, is left unsaid.”
“All legal gun owners again will be harassed and gone after for doing nothing but upholding the law,” said Assemblyman DiPietro (R-147). The common refrain among law-abiding gun owners of all political stripes is that once again, rather than focus on crime and criminals, New York is looking to violate the rights and privacy of law-abiding gun owners.
DiPietro noted that for people who target shoot for recreation and practice, their credit cards would be flagged often. “If you buy a bulk piece of ammunition, you’re targeted, that raises a flag, but for no reason because a lot of people like myself are target shooters,” he said. "It’s not uncommon to shoot a couple hundred rounds in a day.”
If signed into law by New York Governor Kathy Hochul Hochul, it will require retailers who sell guns and ammunition in New York to be assigned the code by May 2025.