On Tuesday, October 10, the Senate Veterans and Public Safety Committee is scheduled to hold its first hearing on Senate Bill 148, a bill to protect the credit card privacy rights of sportsmen.

Gun-control extremists are using every possible avenue to disarm law-abiding sportsmen and gun owners, including how to uncover personal identifying information on who owns firearms in America. The latest tactic on this front is to track credit card purchases of firearms and ammunition. Gun control fanatics like New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Attorney General Rob Bonta will embrace this new “tool” to focus their efforts on legal purchasers of firearms and ammunition in their ongoing quest to destroy our firearms freedom.

In September 2022, the International Organizations for Standardization (ISO) approved the creation of a new merchant category code (MCC) for firearm retailers to use when their customers use a credit card to purchase firearms and ammunition. Credit card companies have always used merchant codes, but previous codes were general with firearm store sales listed as general merchandise or sporting goods. The new codes are specific to firearms and ammunition. The big credit card companies like American Express, Mastercard and Visa have already decided to pause implementation of MCCs.

Pro-gun legislators in several states have already introduced and passed legislation on the topic and now it is Ohio’s turn. Also known as the Second Amendment Financial Privacy Act, SB 148 will prohibit payment settlement entities, merchant acquiring entities and third party settlement organizations from assigning MCCs or otherwise classifying merchants of firearms or ammunition separately from general merchandise or sporting goods retailers.

Please use our Take Action button to email the members of the committee urging them to protect Ohio’s sportsmen and support SB 148.

Don’t forget to share this alert with your family, friends, and fellow sportsmen urging them to also contact the members of the committee urging them to support SB 148.

About the Sportsmen’s Alliance: The Sportsmen’s Alliance protects and defends America’s wildlife conservation programs and the pursuits – hunting, fishing and trapping – that generate the money to pay for them. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation is responsible for public education, legal defense and research. Its mission is accomplished through several distinct programs coordinated to provide the most complete defense capability possible. Stay connected to Sportsmen’s Alliance: Online, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.