Democrat California Gov. Jared Polis

While several states have passed laws this legislative session protecting gun owner privacy by prohibiting the use of firearm-specific merchant category codes by payment processors, Colorado has done just the opposite.

On Wednesday, Democrat Gov. Jared Polis signed SB24-066 into law, basically creating backdoor gun registration in the state by requiring use of such codes.

At issue is a new Merchant Category Code (MCC) for gun purchases adopted by the International Organization for Standardization a little over a year ago. MCCs are used by payment processors (like Visa and Mastercard) and other financial services companies to categorize transactions.

Prior to the creation of the specific code for guns, firearms retailers fell under the MCC for sporting goods stores or miscellaneous retail. If the new code is used, credit card companies and other payment processors can tell the purchases were firearms.

This session, legislators in Utah, Kentucky, Iowa, Tennessee, Georgia, Wisconsin and Indiana passed laws prohibiting use of the code. A similar bill is still under consideration by lawmakers in New Hampshire.

State Sen. Tom Sullivan, sponsor of the measure in the Colorado Senate, said the bill is a life-saving measure.

“Credit cards have been repeatedly used to finance mass shootings, and merchant codes would have allowed the credit card companies to recognize his alarming pattern of behavior and refer it to law enforcement,” Sullivan said. “This bill will give us more tools to protect people, and make it easier to stop illegal firearms-related activity like straw purchases before disaster strikes.”

Interestingly, efforts are underway in Congress to outlaw the use of firearm-specific merchant category codes. Republican Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York, Andy Barr of Kentucky and Richard Hudson of North Carolina have filed a bill that would prohibit use of the four-digit code that’s been created to identify merchants selling firearms.

“The tracking of gun purchases is a violation and infringement on the Constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans which is why I am proud to introduce the Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act to prohibit radical gun grabbing politicians from tracking lawful gun purchases,” Rep. Stefanik said in a press release announcing the measure. “I share the concern of law-abiding gun owners across our nation that have voiced their fear that such tactics will work to serve the radical Left’s anti-gun agenda. I will always stand up for our Second Amendment rights as Americans and provide a critical check to any entity attempting to encroach on our liberties.”

The Colorado law will take effect 90 days after the adjournment of this session of the Colorado legislature.

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80 COMMENTS

    • Oddly, the one of the best people out there, in terms of numbers for registering new Republicans is a very gay Zoomer born in Canada.

      He registers more new R’s in a week nationwide than everyone in the TTAG crew combined has in our combined lifetimes.

      His biggest pull is from people who avoid the R party because of RINOs and perceived limpwristedness.

      Strange, huh?

      • Actually it’s not strange at all. Tammy Bruce a lesbi@n republican, voted for Ronald Reagan for president. She supported Allen West for president.

        She has been attacked and basically run off of terrestrial radio by the “g@y fas.cist.s.” And she has used that term for over 20 years now.

        Her book signings have been attacked by these g@y fas.c.ist.s and other leftists.

        But the only people who have come to her defense have been conservative christians.

        strange, huh???

          • Yes, I have heard of the term politically queer. And I know it has meant different things to different people.

            So what it your point??

            If you think it has only one meaning then you don’t understand, what it means when someone uses it.

            To me it is a Red flag warning. Because in california it was used to justify taking away the Second Amendment. And other human rights violations of the law abiding residents of California.

      • Glad to hear that you find me intelligent. I started a “cash only” policy for certain things 30 years ago. In more recent years, I’ve been using cash for any sporting goods type purchases since, even before this current push, the credit card merchant codes could be used to discover that, even if you were buying a fishing lure or a sleeping bag, you were shopping at a location that could sell you a gun.

        • Every Academy I go to, shoppers are more likely buying shoes. many get clothing, exercise equipment, and fishing gear. Around here anyway. There are some but few are buying gun related stuff. The code in question only signifies the store (not even the specific store). The whole thing is nothing short of ridiculous. You can’t track gun buyers this way. Now if you purchase from guns dot com it might make more sense but then that can be seen anyway. What it does is setup some government group to lie to itself while gas lighting the public. I’m not opposed to making this illegal but the world needs to understand the futility of this type of stupid. It would by it’s very nature end up producing more false positives than anything else.

          For those that choose to use cash…
          Contrary to what is written in this article, CASH (money) is the thing that has funded more criminal activity and has been doing so for thousands of years. Don’t ya find it puzzling that the left focuses so much energy on the nothin-burger while ignoring (for the time being) real threats? Keep in mind that cash is being de-valued and could just as easily become worthless if not outlawed (cashless society). Biden-flation and money pits like Netflix exist to seperate you from all kinds of reasonable things.

          Should I worry about credit card codes? Perhaps but NOT for being a method of tracking and tracing guns. The cookies left on your internet connected devices are a much bigger threat.

          • Regarding “cookies”, mentioned at the end of the above article, unless I’m seriously mistaken, they can be avoided. If this is not the case, then pray tell, why is permission to use/install cookies appear so often.

      • Depends on where you live. Many online ammo vendors, especially the bulk suppliers, do not take cash transfers and one is stuck using a credit card. Any way around that?? If so, enlighten me.

        • I tell the owner of my LGS what I want, he gets it for me and I pay him in cash. He’s happy, I’m happy and occasionally I buy him a beer or he buys me one.

        • prepaid visa card. Pay cash to load it, your name isn’t tied to it. Of course, your name and address are still tied to the purchase and shipping.

      • Intelligent pros realize that cash does nearly nothing in terms of keeping knowledge of your gun possession away from .gov.

    • Cash comes in a pretty green color
      Cash is easy to the touch
      Cash transfers easy
      Use cash every day
      It’s the American way

      From an old Bob and Ray routine

    • The global elites have been working for decades toward the cashless society as part of the implementation of Modern Monetary Theory. Even now most businesses don’t pay employees with cash or even check as was the practice for hundreds of years. Employees had direct deposit forced on them. Many businesses no longer accept cash as payment for goods or services. All part of the plan to ultimately control the purchasing ability of their subjects. To the point if you don’t adhere to the prescribed doctrine of those in control there will be no credits in your account. Orwell warned of this Dystopian Society and all roads are leading to that society unless Freedom loving patriots stand up and end it. Soon, because ours is the last generation that remembers the old ways and the Freedoms that came with those old ways. at this point it’s not what we can do for ourselves, but more importantly what will we leave for our children and their children. Freedom or Servitude.

      • “Soon, because ours is the last generation that remembers the old ways and the Freedoms that came with those old ways.”

        This is their goal but they will not achieve it. They will fail for several reasons that I’m not going to bother with. Regardless, MMT isn’t really about economics, it’s about dictatorial power and gaining that power through a multipronged Cloward and Piven strategy.

        Within this particular prong; this is the bet that TPTB have laid down:

        The first place they’ll try to enforce digibux is in transfer payments for entitlements. Welfare, Social Security and Medicare. Why? Because of demographics, statistics, psychology, size and fiscal situation.

        Fiscal Situation: Social Security is $34 trillion in the hole to 2035 as of 2020. $35 trillion for Medicare for the same years. $69 trillion (way more now, I’m sure) that we don’t have but are legally obligated to pay, $6.27 trillion/year on average but the amounts are actually backloaded as you approach 2035 because of…

        Demographics: Boomers are retiring en masse and are the largest retirement generation in history (2nd largest overall but that’s mostly an attrition thing) with ~74 million of the currently breathing. This year the average Boomer hit 65.

        Statistics: According to SSA itself, which it oddly likes to kinda brag about, 34% of Boomers are entirely reliant on Social Security for retirement (up from ~9% with the Silent Generation) and 80% of Boomers are 50%, or more, reliant on the system. That means a crash in SS would cut the generation’s statistical *net worth* by 40% instantly. It would also throw ~25 million of them on to straight up Welfare which doesn’t fix anything it just moves the red ink to a different ledger. Which plays into…

        Psychology: Boomers are noted for a sense of fair play, strong work ethic and loyalty to an employer predicated on recognition symbolized by material advancement. The first part is another way of saying that they are not keen to accept broken deals (and the statistics indicate they can’t afford to anyway). The second part is a nice way to say that the generation has a tendency towards narcissistic materialism.

        Size: Outside people numbers, Social Security currently pays out $1.4 trillion/year while Medicare pays out over a trillion account for >30% of all medical spending. Welfare accounts for ~$1.2 trillion/year across something like 80 various programs. Crashing those systems would completely upend the economy, worse than The Great Depression and collapse the medical system to boot.

        It’s not so much about what the Boomers and unemployed get, it’s what they spend and how. That is cash flow. That dynamic creates demand on both ends. Retirees want the payment and service/goods providers want them to get it and spend it on the service/good the providers offers. The providers have bills to pay and lines of credit to service predicated on current flows.

        This provides a large number of people willing to accept digibux on both ends of a huge percentage of potential transactions.

        The sheer size of these programs means they generate demand in multiple places.

        ===

        So, a bet that has been laid is that Boomers will flock to digibux whether they really want to or not because they cannot afford/won’t accept a collapse of SS/Medicare and, quite frankly, don’t care about consequences so long as they get what they believe is “theirs”. They will therefore be willing to usher in a dystopian control system in an attempt to maintain their standard of living at the expense of everyone younger than they are.

        The attempt to maintain a lifestyle ultimately, according to the bet laid out, will fail because digibux will be used to turn the screws and lower that standard of living anyway. Enforced “degrowth”, as it were. Boomers don’t need that money for a vacation, RV or a boat since both are basically illegal anyway.

        It’s a heck of a bet and it will certainly fail. But they’ve been grooming the Boomers for this for 50 years so sunk costs and whatnot. They got away with bullshitting their way through this ~20 years ago and crucifying GW Bush over it. But that was before the rocks and the hard places got so close together.

        But that’s not the worrying part, really.

        See, on top of that, most failure modes for this plan don’t actually violate the win conditions of TPTB anyway because, again, all they really care about is amassing and centralizing power. Control over currency is simply one head of the hydra in that regard. A failure of this plan opens up new ways to expand power that range from a managed economic depression all the way up to a Holodomor style of dealing with the plebs. Really, when you think about it, all points along that continuum are just slightly different flavors of Cloward and Piven.

        There is always the chance of semi-organized resistance in a decentralized form. That’s fine, the delta between currency value and official inflation will eat the retirees alive and force divestment of their hard assets, placing those assets in the hands of cronies at a steep discount.

        And then there are the other heads. Surveillance, anarcho-tyranny getting the population to ask for a police state, censorship, cultural control and others. And that’s before the gloves come off.

        It’s all part of the long march towards the revolution.

        And if you think what I’m saying here is crazy or just trying to be mean to Boomers, go research it yourself. They’re pretty damn open about this. I’ve posted a ton of the links for papers on these topics before. Not that, so far as I can tell, anyone bothers to read any of them.

          • A brilliant retort. Concise yet overflowing with meaning and critical thinking.

            Truly amazing analysis. Honestly; Bravo, well done and kudos.

        • What you say is true. And what is not said is before WW2. Our government was much much smaller.

          But Atheist So.c.ialis.m was on the march back then. They wanted to replaced our “sky daddy.” What the atheists called God. And instead have everyone worship the “government sky daddy.”

          Now Taxes almost never go down now. And government regulations never stop increasing.

          The atheists created the welfare industrial complex. When we had private religious based charity. The government was smaller and not into everyone’s business.

          And yeah many baby boomers are atheists. So they got the world they wanted. And they’re still not happy. Still not satisfied.

          A national divorce is coming.

    • You can use cash…until you can’t. Cash transactions are on their list too.

    • “So, there is this thing called cash …”

      If I were Governor, the law would have a provision that all firearm purchases must be via credit/debit card, or some other electronic transaction.

      If’n you’re gonna violate the US constitution, do a big job of it.

  3. So, what does our resident lesbian columnist feel about a homosexual impinging on gun rights??

    • Interesting how she hasn’t written a lot about what’s going on in colorado. She is very chatty on other subjects however.

      Strange huh.

  5. Ya know I’ve tried to impress to my friend to NOT use his credit card to buy gats & ammo but he hasn’t taken the object lesson. I have never ever used any card for gat related purchases. Oh & EFF Colorado!

  6. And these gun companies sit back and take it. Losers. They have power to stand up and say Fuck you to the state and they refuses to do anything. They Could easily Blacklist the ENTIRE state and both gun and ammo companies refuse to Sell to Any state org, and see what they are gonna do about it. They would shit. No Guns to the police, no Ammo to the police. They have to travel to another state to buy it. The Ammo companies can put restrictions in place to prevent that too. Do it to all the states that are against guns, CALIF in particular and see what will happen, they would be up in arms and screaming they are “EXEMPT”! Pfft my ass.

  8. At the very least it’s the blind leading the blind.

    At most it’s disinformation.

  9. Apparently the prog lickers at International Organization for Standardization don’t really understand “standardization”.

  10. They’re coming to your door, eventually. Who fucking cares why? Communism can only be destroyed from within or through war!

      • Neo-Marxism, as pioneered in China in the 1980’s.

        Ultimately, that’s a front for old-school Communism though. When you look at what they tell you they want, it’s not much different from the USSR or the CCP once you get past the window dressing of tech or excuses to implement the programs.

        Ultimately the argument over what is and what is not Communism is kind of a pointless waste of time when you could be fighting against them, whatever you prefer to call them.

        This is, at root, why I have little respect for the Right. They waste time and bathe in glorious ignorance about virtually everything the Left does.

        I mean, how many people would have a clue about the link below or that the general document has been around for years?

        Do It Yourself Occupation Guide 2024 Edition (no, it ain’t about jobs)

        https://archive.org/details/diy-occupation-guide-2024/DIY-Occupation-Guide-2024-PRINT/mode/2up

        These people organize and hit the bricks. Conservatives just whine on the web and, when given the opportunity to win, instead choose to blow off both their feet and a hand by insulting the very people they should be winning over in large numbers.

        • Ath.ei.sts would rather support another at.hei.st gun grabber.

          Instead of supporting a right-wing Christian conservative, who has sex in the missionary position. With the lights turned off. And also has a demonstrated track record of supporting the 2A.

          The atheists have never supported the first amendment. The atheist like the gun grabbers “have re written” the first amendment. They claim the first amendment is about their pornography.

          And the grabbers claim that the second amendment is only about hunting.

          Conservatives are fighting a losing battle in “red communist” states like Colorado.

          And they need to face the truth about that. The Left, the Co.mm.unist, the fa.sci.st, have taken over Colorado and the entire west coast of the United States.

          But the conservatives in Oregon have organized and are moving to separate themselves from western Oregon.

          Just like that city in Louisiana that has now split into two. See a peaceful national divorce is possible.

          big(smile)

          • I’m honestly not even sure how to respond to this because a very large part of me wants dearly to believe that this is one of the best low-key sarcastic posts I’ve ever seen on the internet.

  11. It won’t be long before cash is gone.
    It’s a hindrance.
    If a person believes that only gunm purchases are being tracked your wrong.
    The machine tracks everything.

  12. That’s right go ahead and tell Colorado all about using cash. It won’t be long now before CO passes a law requiring cash to be turned into an electronic purchase and charge 10% for the conversion…Some people don’t know when to stfu.

    • Well, they would first need to secede from the US to do so Debby – ever read the fine print on US currency, the part about “this note is legal tender for all debts public and private”?…. that’s fine if you dont want my legal tender, I guess you’d like to give it to me
      for free then,right?
      jeebus, you are one nasty ass wench aren’t you

    • “It won’t be long now before CO passes a law requiring cash to be turned into an electronic purchase and charge 10% for the conversion”

      They can’t. Cash is physical paper money issued by the U.S. government and is legal tender for debts public and private. A state can not create a law dictating (or requiring) its ‘conversion’ to a different form of ‘tendering for debt’. Even the U.S. government can’t create such a law

      • “They can’t. Cash is physical paper money issued by the U.S. government and is legal tender for debts public and private.”

        It may say that on the money, but it’s not true.

        A private business can refuse to take cash if they want to…

        • Yes, we all know that … A private business can refuse to take cash if they wish. There is nothing that requires an ‘entity’ to accept the legal tender of the land for a ‘debt’.

          We aren’t talking about a private business though. My reply was about the assertion by Debbie that CO could enact a law “requiring cash to be turned into an electronic purchase and charge 10% for the conversion” which they can’t do.

        • Technically, cash is not money.

          It’s a bank note, i.e. it’s a Federal Reserve promissory note and the Federal Reserve is, technically, a private bank in many regards. Due to the exchangeability of such notes, they may be called a “currency”.

          As I’ve pointed out before: If you actually look at the definitions of words and stick to them, there is no money on the planet at this point in time because nothing, and I do mean nothing satisfies the full set of requirements to be “money”.

          Note that digibux, when they arrive are not called Cent. Bank Digi Money. They’re referred to specifically as a “currency” as well.

          That said, .40 is correct, it would require an act of Congress to change the status of what is and what is not legal tender in US jurisdiction to a digital token.

          31 U.S. Code § 5103 – Legal tender

          United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. Foreign gold or silver coins are not legal tender for debts.

          (Pub. L. 97–258, Sept. 13, 1982, 96 Stat. 980; Pub. L. 97–452, § 1(19), Jan. 12, 1983, 96 Stat. 2477.)

          One does have to wonder, however, if a State can’t require something else as part of the transaction, the way the Feds require a 4473 for example.

          For example, numerous states have a secondary background check run by the State when you buy a gun. Theoretically, provided there is no actual “monetary cost” imposed on the buyer, that could be tokenized in a manner similar to a carbon credit but without the price tag and I don’t see a reason why a state couldn’t impose this and simply do it “for you”.

  13. As the owner of a gun shop, I have never, nor ever will, provide any information to my merchant account as to what was purchased. If I’m forced to do so, I will cancel the account and go cash only.

    • wrong turd in the alley…If the law says payment for a firearm is to be electronic they will accrpt your cash and can and will charge you to convert your “legal tender” into electronic…try to comprehend fukhead. Secede? ROTFLMAO…you really don’t know when to stfu.

    • Colorado is fast becoming a fascist state. A hard move but am considering leaving for Texas or Fla…

      • Actually, not the worst description in this case.

        The rules in this law don’t affect stores that have “multiple” income streams.

        So, this doesn’t affect places like Cabela’s, BPS, Jax, Scheel’s, Big 5 etc. It only really affects an LGS.

        One might say that it targets small business.

        • The target is the small local gun store closer to you. Not the big box gun store. You may have to drive over an hour to get to. I’m sure they also want to destroy the local store, that also has a gun range.

          Places like a Bass Pro normally don’t have a gun range.

    • Let’s just hope that Dad teaches those young men the difference between sht and shinola, and they do not grow up and go to some big city and invent something like an OptiGrab.
      It’s the cans, he’s mad at the cans.

      • Steve Martin is a hell of a banjo player, check out his Bluegrass album ‘The Crow’.
        He was friends with John Hartford since the ‘60s, and has John’s original banjo from those days.

      • That girl was so nice, getting him that bl*wjob for extra work…

  15. The first step is banning cashless buisness.

    The next step is banning cbcd”s and make gold and btc the legal tender and leave the fiat”money”Matrix and closed the fed.

  21. A lot of people won’t like what I’m about to say.

    In the immediate, cash solves this from an end-user point of view. Numerous people have pointed that out.

    However, let us not act as though that exit isn’t under threat at the national and international level’s already. Over time, cash will be phased out because, let’s be real, most Conservatives don’t understand the threat against it or why it matters, especially those over 50 years old. “It’s the same as a debit card” is already a common argument from RINOs and Boomercons (but I repeat myself).

    Over time, digibux will take over and, quite frankly, the first to embrace them will be the current group of retirees. I’ve pointed this out before. Squeezing such people is child’s play and, statistically, they’ll go for it whole hog because MuH soShAl SeKuRiE! Add the entitlements for poors to those of retirees and you’ll have a mad rush into such a currency scheme.

    The numbers on that don’t lie.

    Therefore, as much as it might be distasteful, I think the answer here is to return the favor. Red States should impose requirement for a query-able merchant code on things that Democrats and their supporters are fans of. Birth control, for example. The same thing can be done, I’m quite sure to target “women’s clinics” like Planned Parenthood.

    This action can be defended as being necessary to the State’s vital interest of maintaining a population/tax base and also use it to weaponize the State tax code against Democrats and their pet groups.

    They will absolutely sue you for this, arguing that “women’s healthcare is a right”. That’s the point.

    Eventually that gets to Federal Court and either the Dems lose and you can tighten the noose on them in certain OTHER regards, with precedent in hand, (lulz!) or the entire idea of merchant codes to track “rights” gets tossed and merchant code schemes like this nationwide get thrown out.

    At the same time, you’re now pulling a page from the Left and forcing them to spend money twice to defend their position while also insuring that any compromise position is actually in your favor.

    Or, you know, don’t think strategically and get bent over like usual.

  22. All they need to do is apply merchants codes to everything else. Thus all the ones without are firearms merchants.

    And coming up with codes for everything else needn’t be difficult. Just come up with two or three specific one and another as a catch all for everything else except firearms.

    See how easy it would be? Malicious Compliance.

  23. Just curious… is there a specific code for pot purchases on CO?
    Another question. When are the firearms manufacturers going to stand up to these tyrannical states and refuse to sell their guns to any state agency?

  24. “Legal Tender” is a substitute for barter exchange; it is optional, not mandatory. If “Legal Tender” were mandatory for trade, electronic commerce could not exist. Federal Law could be enacted making parking lot rocks “legal tender”, and banning any other form of “legal tender”, rendering what we call “cash” valueless. We are well beyond the capability to simply disappear from govt scrutiny….regarding firearms, even a cash transaction can be categorized by the device that records the transaction.

    If you want to hide your firearm transactions from the govt, you need to be able to create your own firearms, while also masking the intent of the items you acquire to build your firearm/ammo.

    The entire concept of “personal security” is at an end.

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