Senate Bill 24-066 Firearms Merchant Category Code
Links: Bill text: https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb24-066 (as introduced)
Fiscal note: https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2024A/bills/fn/2024a_sb066_00.pdf
Sponsors: Senator Sullivan (D Dist 27 Arapahoe-Douglas)
Representative Froelich (D Dist 3 Arapahoe-Denver)
The Legislative Action Committee voted to support this bill based on our position on Gun Safety. There were several questions about how the codes work and how detailed the information generated would be. Senator Sullivan responded to a query:
... The idea is that firearms and the associated items will be treated like all other products sold in the world. The data will be used by the credit card companies and can be accessed by law enforcement like they do to stop money laundering and human trafficking .... If you buy a firearm and use credit to pay for it regardless of where it will be assigned a code.
The bill is scheduled for the Thursday 8 February 2024 meeting of the Senate Business, Labor, and Technology Committee.
Summary from Fiscal Note:
Starting September 1, 2024, the bill requires payment card networks to make a merchant
category code for firearms available for merchant acquirers that provide services for firearms
merchants. Merchant acquirers are entities that process debit, credit, or prepaid transactions.
Starting May 1, 2025, the bill requires merchant acquirers to assign the merchant category code
for firearms to each firearms merchant to which they provide services. A contract containing a
waiver of these requirements is void.
Payment card networks provide services to route debit, credit, or prepaid transactions between bank participants, including credit card companies such as Visa and MasterCard. This bill will require credit card networks to assign Merchant Category Codes (MCC) to businesses that sell firearms and ammunition. The MCC code identifies the type of business or service that is being sold and allows purchases to be categorized and tracked. By identifying firearm purchases, financial institutions can report suspicious activity, as required by law.
This type of labeling of purchases will allow banks to report unusual activity: purchases of massive amounts of ammunition, purchases of unusual numbers of firearms. Potentially, this information can be used by researchers to determine numbers of firearms being purchased, etc.
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