~Th`anks for update.

As a Kentucky resident and a gun owner, my reaction to this law and the NRA-ILA lobbying drive to pass it consists of one large YAWN.

The entire debate over having a Merchant Category Code for sellers of firearms and ammunition has been a farce on both sides -- if the debate and the campaigns both for an against the new MCC accomplished anything at all it was just fund-raising for both sides.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

Both sides claimed that the new MCC would provide a way to identify and track firearms and ammunition purchases. Both sides were mostly lying!

The MCC doesn't really generate any new information. At most it makes it easier to sort SOME of the information that card processing companies already have.

First let's look at what information the card processing company already gets. They get:
- The account number of the store where the purchase was made
- The credit card number used to make the purchase
- The total amount of the purchase
- The date and time of the purchase
That's all. Nothing about what was bought, nothing about who made the purchase (they just presume it was some authorized user of the card). They don't even get the Merchant Category Code as part of the transaction because the MCC is already connected to the Merchant Account Number.

So, none of the information is tied to an individual and none of the information says what was bought.

The Merchant Category Code is used to identify different kinds of stores -- but only in a pretty general way. For example: the Merchant Category Code will tell the processor whether a merchant is a restaurant or a gas station, but it cannot identify if you went to the corner gas station to buy a sandwich and a coke.

Right now, most gun stores have the Merchant Category Code as a Sporting Goods Store. With the new MCC, some of those gun stores would have a new MCC as a Firearms Retailer -- but only some of them. Bass Pro Shops is a "Sporting Goods" store that happens to also sell guns and ammo. Under the new MCC they are still a Sporting Goods store because most of their sales are not firearms, accessories, or ammunition. Walmart is currently a "General Merchandise" store that also happens to sell guns and ammunition. Under the new MCC, Walmart is still a General Merchandise store. The MCC is for the entire store, it does not change based on what you buy, it does not change based on which cash register you use to check out, it is always the whole store.

If you go to Walmart to buy your weekly groceries, and a new TV, and a case of shotgun shells, that whole purchase is in the system as "General Merchandise" -- none of it is listed separately as "Food and Groceries" or "Electronics" or "Firearms, Accessories, and Ammunition" because the whole store has one MCC even though you had to go to two or three different registers to check out.

Yes, real Gun Shops that just sell firearms, accessories, and ammunition would get the new MCC. But does anyone really think that the credit card processing companies, the banks, or the government don't know that the store named "Ma & Pa's Olde Gun Shoppe" is selling guns or that "Lucky Gunner Online Ammunition" is selling ammo. OK, so yes, those are obvious, but they don't need the store name to tell them what kind of store it is, the bank already has that information (and a lot more) from the store's application for a Merchant Account.

And, for anyone who wears sunglasses and a tinfoil hat while shopping for guns and ammo, you are probably already smart enough to shop locally and use cash so that the government spy satellites and black helicopters don't get you.