Sponsor
Maxwell Frost
Representative · D-FL
Representative · D-FL
The bill preserves payment-processing stability and nationwide consistency by federalizing rules on firearm merchant coding, but it removes state-level control—reducing local public-safety tools and potentially shifting enforcement costs to the federal government.
Card networks, banks, and payment issuers gain a uniform federal rule enforced by the Attorney General that prevents state-level bans on using standardized ISO merchant category codes for firearm sales, reducing legal uncertainty for payment processors and issuers.
Small-business firearm merchants can continue using standardized ISO merchant category codes to classify transactions, avoiding payment-processing disruptions and merchant account restrictions.
State governments lose the ability to restrict or discourage merchant coding for firearm sales, reducing their local tools for public-safety and consumer-protection policymaking.
Consumers and communities (urban and rural) may face reduced transparency and fewer state-level tools to track or restrict firearm-related financial flows, potentially hampering local public-safety efforts.
Taxpayers could incur higher federal enforcement and litigation costs if the Attorney General must sue to block state laws, diverting DOJ resources from other priorities.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Bars states from prohibiting or deterring use of ISO merchant category codes or payment-card identifiers that identify firearm merchants or firearm-related purchases and lets the Attorney General sue to enforce that ban.
Prevents states from banning or discouraging use of ISO merchant category codes (MCCs) or payment-card transaction identifiers that indicate firearm merchants or purchases of firearms, ammunition, components, or accessories. It gives the U.S. Attorney General authority to sue in federal court to stop states that try to bar or deter such merchant coding. The change is a narrow federal preemption: it adds a new subsection to federal law that blocks state laws that would prohibit or deter using payment-data codes to identify firearm-related merchants or transactions, and creates a federal enforcement route through the Attorney General.
Official title: To prohibit States from prohibiting or otherwise deterring the usage of any merchant category code established by the International Organization for Standardization, including codes that identify firearm merchants and ammunition merchants.
Introduced January 16, 2026 by Maxwell Frost · Last progress January 16, 2026