A bill to stop credit card companies from taking steps to help law enforcement agencies identify suspicious purchases of firearms and ammunition was passed by the Iowa House of Representatives on Tuesday. HF 2464 was approved on a party-line vote with House Democrats voting against it.
The bill prohibits credit card companies from using transaction codes that distinguish firearms retailers from any other sort of store. Iowa would join seven other Republican-led states in passing such a prohibition, if the bill is also approved by the Senate. Republicans are reacting to a new law in California requiring credit card companies to create a unique code for purchases at standalone gun stores by May 2025.
Proponents of the California bill say it might help prevent gun crime and mass shootings by allowing unusual gun and ammunition purchases to be identified. They point to the 2012 mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado and the 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida. In both cases the shooter used credit cards to buy weapons and stockpile large amounts of ammunition in a short period before their crimes. Twelve people were killed and 58 were wounded in the Aurora shooting, and 49 people were killed and 53 were wounded in the Orlando shooting.
Under the California law, credit card companies would be encouraged to contact the appropriate law enforcement agency if they detect unusual purchases. The companies are already required by federal law to alert authorities in the case of purchases that suggest a connection to terrorism or identity theft.
Proponents of California law also contend that assigning a unique merchant code to stores that primarily sell guns and ammunition may help law enforcement identify possible gun trafficking and straw purchases of weapons.
Credit card companies already routinely assign unique codes to different categories of businesses to be able to track purchase patterns. In 2022, the International Standards Organization, which set rules for financial services companies, approved the creation of a code for transactions at firearms dealers in order to help address the problem of illicit gun sales.
HF 2464 also prohibits any government entity in the state from keeping a record of “privately owned firearms or of the owners of privately owned firearms” except as part of a criminal investigation or trial while that investigation or trial is ongoing.
During the floor debate on HF 2464, Rep. Phil Thompson, chair of the House Public Safety Committee, called the possibility of creating a unique code for credit card purchases at gun stores “a huge violation of financial privacy,” adding “this is just a back[door] way to keep a list” of gun owners.
This is the second time this session Thompson, a Republican from Boone, has raised fear of some government agency creating a list of gun owners. He cited the possibility during the subcommittee hearing last week that killed a bill which would have required guns built from kits or created by 3D printers to have serial numbers, as guns produced in factories do. Proponents of the bill said it would help police investigate crimes committed with so-called “ghost guns.”
“As much as I would like to trust and operate in good will with the ATF or [Iowa] Department of Public Safety, setting up the logistical framework for the registration frankly terrifies me,” Thompson said, before voting to reject the bill.
In addition to HF 2464, there are two other gun-related bills still under consideration in the Iowa Legislature. HF 2556 creates new financial penalties for any local government that creates a gun regulation stricter than those that exist at the state level. State law already prevents local governments from doing that, this bill would just increase the penalty for any city or county that does so.
The other bill, HF 2586, creates a new weapons permit that would allow any school employee who qualifies to carry a gun in school buildings and on school grounds. It also requires the state’s largest school districts to have “at least one private school security officer or school resource officer to guard each attendance center where students enrolled in grades 9 through 12 regularly attend classes” unless a majority of school board members in a district vote to rescind that requirement.
This year’s legislative session began four days after the Jan. 4 school shooting in Perry, which killed one student and the principal of Perry High School. Republican leaders said at the beginning of the session they would not be introducing or supporting any new gun safety laws in response to the shooting. They are following the example of Gov. Reynolds, who has called the shooting “evil” and said laws can’t stop evil acts.
“While we can’t legislate away evil and get rid of all the bad things in this world, we will keep our thoughts and prayers with those in Perry as we move forward and put in place policies to make our state better and stronger,” Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver, a Republican from Grimes, said as the legislature began its 2024 session on Jan. 8.
