Why Your Credit Card Could Be Disabled Soon (If You’re Conservative)

In a letter to Mastercard and American Express, 50 state elected officials in New York asked them to begin classifying sales of firearms and ammunition under a separate category so that law enforcement agencies can better track these transactions, according to a report published last week by the Gothamist.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, NY State Attorney General Letitia James, and Comptroller Brad Lander are the most well-known public figures driving this movement, according to Ken Macon of Reclaim the Net. Further encouraging credit card firms to flag gun transactions are the Teachers’ Pension System, the NY City Employees’ Pension System, and the Board of Education Retirement System. According to Macon, “these pension funds have 1.1 million shares of Mastercard, with a market value of approximately $347.59 million, and 67,200 shares of American Express, with a market value of approximately $92.49 million.”

In essence, the pension funds are using their shareholder rights to pressure the credit card companies into taking action.

We have a responsibility to make sure that our pension funds are saving lives rather than taking them away, according to Adams.

Currently, credit card companies categorize purchases using “depending on where the money is spent” merchant category codes.A code for the sale of ammunition and firearms does not yet exist.

The bank spearheading this initiative, Amalgamated Bank, has submitted a proposal to the International Organization for Standardization. The code is created by the IOS. Amalgamated Bank asked for a new category in the application for ammunition and gun shops. Macon drew attention to the fact that the bank had already submitted a comparable request. This plea, however, met with little success. There were rumors that the top credit card issuers interfered with the bank’s efforts.

It would be worthwhile, according to Attorney General Letitia James, “if tracing these codes might halt just one mass massacre or derail one gun trafficker trying to flood the streets with firearms.”

Later in September, the IOS is expected to vote on this application.

The corporate vs. public sector divide needs to be transcended by the Right. The private sector is one of the biggest dangers to our liberties. From the executives all the way down to the common employees, wokism has essentially taken over Corporate America.

It’s very hard for anti-freedom politicians to enact their pet projects because of the strong constitutional safeguards that protect liberties like the Second Amendment and free expression, so they have to get inventive. One strategy they’re employing to do this is to use the private sector as a crude weapon against established American liberties.

The Right has to take notice of this and utilize state-level prudential authority to impose restrictions on businesses that act in this way. Freedom’s adversaries must always be held accountable for their misdeeds.