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Second Amendment advocacy organizations are blasting the major credit card companies\u2019 plan to distinguish gun purchases in payment processors, saying it is a step toward a database of U.S. gun owners.<\/p>\n
Visa Inc. announced over the weekend that it will begin to categorize sales at gun shops, joining\u00a0Mastercard<\/a>\u00a0and American Express. Gun control advocates say the category will better track suspicious sales that could lead to mass shootings.<\/p>\n Visa said it would adopt the International Organization for Standardization\u2019s new merchant code for gun store sales. Until Friday, gun store sales were considered \u201cgeneral merchandise.\u201d…<\/p>\n Erich Pratt, senior vice president for Gun Owners of America, called the action by the financial institutions \u201cthe latest attempt by anti-gun lunatic activists to pressure corporations into collecting their own business partners\u2019 data in a way that threatens their privacy, as well as the privacy of the millions of customers who rely on these services for electronic transactions each year.\u201d<\/p>\n He predicted that the data would not stay with the credit card companies.<\/p>\n \u201cMake no mistake, if the credit card companies were willing to so quickly cave on this demand, the mob will only demand more, leading us down a dark path where guns and ammo transactions, which are protected by the Second Amendment, are frequently halted and consistently flagged for the authorities,\u201d he said….<\/p>\n Read more at The Washington Times<\/a><\/p>\n