On Wednesday, Senate Bills 1014, 1020, and 1143 were passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Public Safety Committee. These bills will now head to the Rules committee for consideration before heading to the Senate floor.
Senate Bill 1014 amends Arizona’s definition of “Prohibited weapon” to no longer include suppressors. Current state law already exempts suppressors that are possessed, manufactured, or transported in compliance with federal law, which tightly regulates them.
Senate Bill 1020 prohibits governing boards of universities, colleges, and community colleges from enacting or enforcing any policy preventing the carrying of concealed handguns by carry permit holders or preventing citizens from lawfully transporting or storing firearms in locked vehicles hidden from view. Adults who are officially licensed to carry a firearm for self-defense should not be prevented from doing so just because they seek higher education.
Senate Bill 1143 would prohibit financial institutions from using specific merchant code to track firearm purchases. In the Fall of 2022, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) approved a Merchant Category Code (MCC) for firearm retailers. MCCs are used by payment processors (like Visa and Mastercard) and other financial services companies to categorize transactions. MCCs enable payment processors and banks to identify, monitor, and collect data on certain types of transactions. Before the ISO decision, firearm retailers fell under the MCC for sporting goods stores or miscellaneous retail.
Collecting firearm retailer financial transaction data amounts to surveillance and registration of law-abiding gun owners. Those promoting this scheme are in favor of firearm and gun owner registrations. Therefore, it should be assumed that the goal of this program is to share all collected firearm retailer MCC data with government authorities and potentially private third parties that may include gun control organizations and anti-gun researchers.
Please stay tuned to www.nraila.org and your email inbox for further updates.
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