Another Limitation of 2nd Amendment Rights  Henry Kramer 

Second Amendment Rights are now under assault from components of the private sector.  Visa, Mastercard, and American Express announced they will set up separate merchant transaction codes for gun purchases.  These codes will make it easier to track who has exercised their second amendment rights and purchased firearms. The new credit card company regulations can be viewed as a potential impairment of gun owner rights as many purchases are made with plastic, not checks or cash

Keep in mind that private sector companies are not bound, as the U.S. government is, to observe constitutional liberties.  However, government has been known to “push the envelope” to influence private companies into doing things that the government is forbidden from doing, as in the recent revelations about the FBI influencing Facebook about Hunter Biden’s “Computer from Hell”.

The Constitution is a series of limitations only on government.  The government acts on individuals and the private sector through statutory enactment.  So, the recent SCOTUS decision in Bruen protecting Second Amendment rights does not legally limit what credit card companies may or may not do in regards to merchant classifications.

By what right do credit card companies make gun purchases different from other purchases?  Attorneys-General in a number of states have recently warned private sector companies pursuing social and political objectives that the primary fiduciary duty of the members of their boards of directors is to the stockholders to bring in return on investment.  Being “woke” does not supersede their fiduciary duties.  Failure to do so may make directors personally liable to stockholders.

Gun owners and non-owners who support second amendment rights to protect all constitutional rights may wish to write to Visa, Mastercard, and American Express - and to the banks that issue them - that they may cancel these cards if the card issuers discriminate against second amendment rights.

Most importantly, in the upcoming November elections they may wish to vote against candidates who support violating the spirit of SCOTUS’s Bruen decision that bolstered second amendment rights.  The private sector should not be trying to impose limitations that the public sector is barred now from implementing.