New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu signed H.B. 1186, the Firearm Purchaser’s Privacy Act, into law in late July 2024. With New Hampshire, there are now 17 states with laws that protect the Second Amendment financial privacy of their citizens. The New Hampshire law protects the privacy and sensitive financial information of people purchasing firearms and ammunition in The Granite State.
The law prohibits financial institutions from requiring the use of a firearms code, also known as a Merchant Category Code (MCC), from being assigned to firearm and ammunition purchases at retail when using a credit card. Additionally, the law gives enforcement authority to the state attorney general for any business entity found in violation of the law.
“Governor Chris Sununu’s signing of the Firearm Purchaser’s Privacy Act is a necessary tool to protect the Second Amendment and privacy rights of New Hampshire citizens from unlawful intrusion on their private purchases when purchasing firearms and ammunition with a payment card,” said Jake McGuigan, the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Government Relations – State Affairs Managing Director.
“Law-abiding gun purchasers in the ‘Live Free or Die’ state won’t need to worry that Wall Street banks, credit card companies and payment processors will collude with government entities to spy on their private finances when exercising their rights. No American should fear being placed on a government watchlist simply for exercising their Constitutionally-protected rights to keep and bear arms, he said.”
The U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) admitted to U.S. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) in a letter that it violated the Fourth Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens that protect against illegal search and seizure when it collected the credit card purchase history from banks and credit card companies of individuals who purchased firearms and ammunition in the days surrounding Jan. 6, 2020.
Treasury’s FinCEN had no probable cause, and sought the information without a warrant, to place these law-abiding citizens on a government watchlist only because they exercised their Second Amendment rights to lawfully purchase firearms and ammunition.
The idea of a firearm-retailer specific MCC was borne from antigun New York Times’ columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin and Amalgamated Bank, which has been called “The Left’s Private Banker” and bankrolls the several antigun politicians. Amalgamated Bank lobbied the Swiss-based International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for the code’s creation. NSSF has called on Congress to investigate Amalgamated Bank’s role in manipulating the ISO standard setting process for political purposes.
Sorkin admitted creating a firearm-retailer specific MCC would be a first step to creating a national firearm registry, which is forbidden by federal law.
New Hampshire joins a growing list of states that are standing against the invasion of financial privacy when exercising Second Amendment rights, including Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Iowa, Kentucky, Wyoming, Indiana, Utah, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Texas and West Virginia. These states passed laws protecting citizens’ Second Amendment privacy.
Other states are considering similar legislation. U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) introduced S. 4075, the Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act in the Senate. U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) introduced H.R. 7450, with the same title in the U.S. House of Representatives. Three states – California, Colorado and New York– have passed legislation requiring payment card processors to report purchases by a firearm retailer-specific MCC.
