Lawmakers want to prevent credit card companies from tracking gun, ammo sales

ST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. — Florida’s Commissioner of Agriculture wants to prevent credit card companies from tracking gun and ammunition sales. It’s a bill that will be up for debate this legislative session.

Brian DeVito has spent the past few days moving his firearms business, the Tactical Store, to a new spot on US-1 St. Lucie County.

“In the last four years, we’ve seen unprecedented growth, so we needed a bigger location,” DeVito said Monday.

But part of his business, is keeping tabs with what’s happening in Tallahassee.

“Anything that goes on in Tallahassee, or the federal government, can affect our business,” he said.

DeVito is in favor of the Florida Arms and Ammo Act that would prevent credit card companies from tracking gun and ammunition purchases in Florida. It would be the first bill of its kind in the country.

Credit card companies announced plans last year to use unique merchant codes for gun stores.

Patricia Brigham, president of Prevent Gun Violence Florida, said the goal is to prevent mass shootings, citing large purchases of weapons by the Pulse and Las Vegas shooters leading up to those tragedies.

“This has nothing to do with the Second Amendment. When you see these types of purchases being made in a short amount of time with large amounts of money, a red flag should go up,” said Brigham.

State Representative John Snyder, whose district covers Martin and northern Palm Beach Counties, is sponsoring the bill in the House. He said what the credit card companies would be doing is creating a back door registry.

“You could potentially walk into that gun store to simply buy a pair of sunglasses. Now all of a sudden, big tech could be colluding with the federal government, could be putting your name on a registry that said this person, according to our credit card sales, just made a credit card purchase,” Snyder said from Tallahassee on Monday.

Manuel Oliver, who lost his son Joaquin in the Parkland shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School five years ago, sees the credit card company moves as a step in the right direction.

“I don’t see why anyone for protection, for protecting himself or his family needs an AR-15 and 1,500 ammunition,” Oliver said. He is Washington, DC to mark the tragedy.

DeVito said he doesn’t believe the credit card company moves would prevent violence though, because of how today’s criminals operate.

“And they typically don’t buy guns with credit cards, they buy them on the street with cash,” he said.

Representative Snyder said he plans to shepherd the Arms and Ammo Act once lawmakers are back in regular session next month.