NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, celebrates Kentucky House Bill 357, informally called the Second Amendment Privacy Act, passing into law. This NSSF-supported law protects the privacy and sensitive financial information of people purchasing firearms and ammunition in Kentucky. The law was passed with an overwhelming majority by the Commonwealth’s General Assembly.
The law prohibits financial institutions from requiring the use of a firearm code, also known as a Merchant Category Code (MCC), from being assigned to designate firearm and ammunition purchases at retail when using a credit card. The law also forbids discriminating against a firearm retailer as a result of the assigned or non-assignment of a firearm code and disclosing protected financial information. Additionally, the law prohibits keeping or causing to be kept any list, record or registry of private firearm ownership. The law was sponsored by Kentucky state Reps. Derek Lewis and Michael Meredith, as well as state Sen. Jason Howell.
“Kentucky’s lawmakers are showing their citizens what leadership-in-action looks like by protecting their privacy and preventing ‘woke’ Wall Street from colluding with government to target them for exercising their Second Amendment rights,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President & General Counsel. “NSSF is deeply grateful to Representatives Lewis and Meredith and Senator Howell for sponsoring this legislation and ushering it through to become law. No American should fear being placed on a government watchlist simply for exercising their Constitutionally-protected rights to keep and bear arms.”
NSSF worked closely with Kentucky legislators to protect private and legal firearm and ammunition purchases from political exploitation. The Second Amendment Privacy Act is designed to protect the privacy of lawful and private firearm and ammunition purchases from being abused for political purposes by corporate financial service providers and unlawful government search and seizure of legal and private financial transactions.
The U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) admitted to U.S. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) in a letter that it violated the Fourth Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens that protect against illegal search and seizure when it collected the credit card purchase history from banks and credit card companies of individuals who purchased firearms and ammunition in the days surrounding Jan. 6, 2021. Treasury’s FinCEN had no cause, and sought the information without a warrant, to place these law-abiding citizens on a government watchlist only because they exercised their Second Amendment rights to lawfully purchase firearms and ammunition.
The idea of a firearm-retailer specific MCC was borne from antigun New York Times’ columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin and Amalgamated Bank, which has been called “The Left’s Private Banker” and bankrolls the Democratic National Committee and several antigun politicians. Amalgamated Bank lobbied the Swiss-based International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for the code’s creation. NSSF has called on Congress to investigate Amalgamated Bank’s role in manipulating the ISO standard setting process.
Sorkin admitted that creating a firearm-retailer specific MCC would be a first step to creating a national firearm registry, which is forbidden by federal law.
Kentucky joins a growing list of states that are standing against the invasion of financial privacy when exercising Second Amendment rights, including Wyoming, Indiana, Utah, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Texas and West Virginia. These states passed laws protecting citizens’ Second Amendment privacy. Other states are considering similar legislation. U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik introduced H.R. 7450, the NSSF-supported Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act in the U.S. House of Representatives. California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law requiring the use of a firearm-retailer specific MCC and Colorado is considering similar legislation.
