AUSTIN – Attorney General Paxton joined a multistate letter led by Tennessee and Montana that is being sent to the CEOs of American Express, Mastercard, and Visa due to their problematic targeting of 2nd Amendment rights. Backed by gun-control advocates and the International Organization for Standardization, these companies’ new policy takes direct aim at lawful gun owners by creating a merchant category code to track purchases at firearms stores.
The structuring of the code and its vague nature suggest that the policy has nothing to do with promoting public safety, but is intended to collect data on millions of Americans who shop at gun stores and to track firearms merchants themselves. The potential damage to Americans’ constitutional rights includes hacking this confidential information and misusing the data to punish law-abiding gun owners merely for exercising their 2nd Amendment rights.
The letter declares the following in its opening: “As
our respective States’ chief legal officers, we are tasked with
protecting the constitutional rights of our citizens, defending our
consumers from privacy intrusions and other abuses, and enforcing
antitrust laws. Accordingly, we share our concerns and ask that you take
immediate action to comport with our consumer protection laws and
respect the constitutional rights of all Americans.”
