Major credit card companies have attempted to monitor the transactions of firearm retailers and consumers through unique merchant codes, which could then be used to “flag” law-abiding citizens. The legislation I signed today will end this practice and will protect Floridians. pic.twitter.com/R8YwAcw9Gt
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) May 12, 2023
There’s been a movement among massive credit card companies to basically monitor the transactions of firearm retailers and individual consumers through unique codes that they’re calling merchant category codes or MCCs for short. And so this is a new code. It only applies to either retailers that sell firearms or consumers that purchase…and it’s not even really limited to that.
Because as you know, there are sporting good stores that sell firearms. They also sell a bunch of other stuff. You could be buying sporting goods for your kid’s athletics…so you go in and do that, they can tag you or flag you as being somebody that somehow should be looked at.
And that’s just fundamentally wrong. So we believe that whole idea of MCCs is very political. We think it’s going to be used against people for exercising their basic constitutional rights.
So you had a movement in the legislature. You had commissioner Simpson, a lot of people understood this. And I said ‘I’m very supportive of making sure that this is not allowed in the state of Florida.’
So the second bill we’ll sign will prohibit the use of firearm-specific MCC codes and we’ll be the first state in the country to step up to the plate and prohibit these massive financial institutions from collecting date on you, flagging you, just for bascically exercising your right.
I mean, if you go and buy ammunition for your firearms and then you go to one of these shooting ranges, should you be flagged for doing that? I don’t think so. So in the state of Florida, you will not be flagged for doing it.
— Florida Governor Ron DeSantis