Visa and Mastercard paused their decision to start categorizing purchases at gun shops, a significant win for conservative groups and Second Amendment advocates who felt that tracking gun shop purchases would inadvertently discriminate against legal firearms purchases.
The decision is, at the same time, also a defeat for gun control groups.
There had been hope that categorizing credit and debit card purchases would allow authorities to potentially see red flags — like significant ammunition purchases — before a mass shooting could happen.
After Visa and Mastercard announced their plans to implement a separate merchant category code for gun shop purchases, the payment networks got significant pushback from the gun lobby as well as conservative politicians.
A group of 24 GOP state attorneys general wrote a letter to the payment networks threatening legal action against Visa and Mastercard if they moved forward with their plan.
There are also bills pending in several state legislatures that would ban the tracking of purchases at gun shops, which would have made it even more difficult for Visa and Mastercard to implement the categorization.
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