New York Governor signs gun code law

Dive Brief:

• New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a merchant gun code bill into law — along with a slew of additional gun control measures — at a bill signing event in New York City on Wednesday.
• As a result, credit card networks must make a new merchant category code available for credit card transactions at ammunition and gun stores in the state of New York beginning next month.
• Hochul and other supporters of the law said the rule will help regulators flag unusual activity at gun stores and may help thwart mass shootings. “We know if someone is stockpiling ammo, that is not a good sign,” she said at the event.

Dive Insight:

Convicted mass shooters such as James Holmes — who killed 12 people in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater in 2012 — hoarded ammunition in the weeks or months leading up to the mass shooting they committed, Hochul said during the signing ceremony.

Holmes, for example, bought around 3,000 rounds for handguns, 3,000 rounds for a semiautomatic rifle, and 350 rounds for a shotgun in the four months leading up to the Aurora shooting, according to the New York Times.

A merchant gun code is intended to help the authorities spot such purchases in time to prevent a similar mass shooting, Hochul said as she stood behind a lectern that read “enough is enough.”

Several activist groups that are pushing for merchant gun code laws had representatives at the ceremony. Organizations like the New York City-based Everytown for Gun Safety — a nonprofit that is one of the most prominent gun control advocacy groups — are lobbying states to use a merchant category code for gun dealers.

“You have cemented New York state as one of the leaders in gun safety,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said of Hochul at the Wednesday event.

Hudson Munoz, the executive director of the Washington D.C.-based advocacy group Guns Down America, also attended the event.

“This has grand implications for the detection and deterrence of gun crimes,” he said in a phone interview. 

The National Rifle Association opposes merchants’ use of gun codes. The Fairfax, Virginia-based organization’s Institute for Legislative Action called the move an attack on law-abiding gun owners in a statement on its website.

“This intrusion lays the foundation for gun registries and is ripe for abuse,” the statement said.

Spokespeople for the major card networks — Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express — did not respond to requests for comment.

But in response to letters from Congressional Democrats in December, executives from those card networks said they would comply with a similar law that California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law in September 2023.

The International Organization for Standardization approved a merchant category code for gun sellers in September 2022, despite controversy over the move, and published the code the following February.

Congress has not passed a bill requiring the use of the code nationwide, and states have moved in opposite directions on the issue.

New York follows Colorado and California in requiring card networks to allow for retailers’ use of the code for gun and ammunition purchases. Meanwhile,16 states ban the use of the code, according to USA Today. Those states include North Dakota, West Virginia, Mississippi, Idaho, Texas, Montana, Tennessee, Georgia, Iowa, Wyoming and Florida.

California’s state government gave Card networks until May 2025 to comply with the state’s law.

“New York’s law requires payment networks to make the [merchant category code] available by November 1, 2024, and requires the codes to be assigned by May 1, 2025,” Maggie Halley, a spokesperson for Hochul wrote in an email.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed a law requiring the use of a merchant category code for gun retailers on May 1. The law becomes effective next May.