Gov. Jeff Landry took action on Tuesday, June 11, to ban the financial tracking of gun sales, signing into law SB 301, a bill that bans financial institutions and credit card companies from tracking, at least in Louisiana, firearm purchases and firearm-related purchases. The bill is meant to ban the surveillance and potential financial punishment of Louisianians who exercise their 2nd Amendment rights.
Specifically, the law prohibits financial institutions from using a so-called Merchant Category Code (MCC) for purchases of firearms and ammunition. The law applies to the use of credit cards in retail locations. Gun owners have long feared that left-leaning financial institutions will use such codes to either block gun purchases and/or create a data base of gun owners.
The bill, SB 301, also bans those same financial institutions from discriminating against firearm retailers as a result of the firearm code assignment prohibition, or from disclosing protected financial information. And, finally, the pro-2nd Amendment bill forbids the keeping or causing to be kept of any list, registry, or similar record of who owns private firearms.
The recently signed bill itself provides, “Except for those records kept during the regular course of a criminal investigation and prosecution, or as otherwise required by law, no government entity or official and no agent or employee of a governmental entity shall knowingly keep or cause to be kept any list, record, or registry of privately owned firearms or the owners of those firearms.”
It also provides that, in the case of violations, “The attorney general shall investigate reasonable allegations that a person or entity, including a government entity, has violated the provisions of this Chapter and, upon finding violation, provide written notice to the person or entity believed to have committed the violation. The person or entity shall cease the violation within thirty business days after receiving written notice from the attorney general pursuant to this Section” and if a violation is discovered and not ceased, the entity can be fined
The NSSF, the firearm industry trade association, praised Gov. Landry for signing the bill in a statement. NSFF’s Director of Government Relations – State Affairs, Darren LaSorte, said, “Governor Jeff Landry’s signature on the Second Amendment Financial Privacy Act is a powerful statement that the Second Amendment rights of Louisianans are not negotiable.”
Continuing, he explained what he and the NSSF see the law ad doing to protect the privacy rights of law-abiding Louisiana gun owners, saying, in the statement, “This law will protect Louisiana’s citizens from unlawful intrusion on their private purchases when purchasing firearms and ammunition with a payment card.”
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He then added whey the bill is seen as necessary, explaining, “‘Woke’ Wall Street banks, credit card companies and payment processors won’t be able to collude with government entities to spy on Louisianans’ private finances when they exercise their rights. No American should fear being placed on a government watchlist because they choose their Constitutionally-protected rights to keep and bear arms.”
Louisiana, in banning financial institutions from tracking firearm sales, joined 15 other red states in doing so. Those other red states that have barred credit card or financial institution tracking of firearm and firearm-related purchases are Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Iowa, Kentucky, Wyoming, Indiana, Utah, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Texas, and West Virginia.