Lawful purchasers of firearms and ammunition would get more privacy protection under a measure proposed by Florida Department of Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, State Sen. Danny Burgess (R-Zephyrhills), and State Representative John Snyder (R-Stuart).
Called the “Florida Arms and Ammo Act,” the proposed legislation would prohibit financial institutions from collecting and monitoring information on law-abiding Floridians’ firearm and ammunition purchases.
Simpson said that the legislation was proposed in response to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) establishment of a Merchant Category Code (MCC) specifically for firearm retailers. ISO is an international, non-governmental organization that creates voluntary standards for a variety of industries around the world. MCCs allow payment processors and banks to categorize, monitor, and collect data on various types of transactions.
Creating the firearm retailer-specific category would create a quasi-registry of Floridians who have legally purchased guns or ammunition, according to Simpson.
“The ‘Florida Arms and Ammo Act’ draws a line in the sand and tells multi-national progressive financial institutions, and their allies in Washington, that they cannot covertly create a backdoor firearm registry of Floridians – or else,” Simpson said in announcing the proposed legislation.
The next regular session of the Florida Legislature is slated to begin on March 7.
