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Protecting Second Amendment Rights Executive Order

On Friday, February 7th, the President of the United States issued an executive order entitled Protecting Second Amendment Rights. Given the all-out assault on the Second Amendment by the previous administration, this is a significant event, but will the result be what we want? 

This is the link to the Executive Order on the White House website. I encourage you to take a few minutes and read it for yourself. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/protecting-second-amendment-rights-7b90/

As expected, the reaction from the extreme left anti-gun zealots and their talking heads was swift and unhinged. 

From Everytown: BREAKING: Trump just signed a sweeping executive order calling on

Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate “ongoing infringements” of the Second Amendment. Let’s be clear: The bipartisan, life-saving, and extremely popular progress on gun safety made under the leadership of the Biden Administration is consistent with the Second Amendment, which is why 15 Senate Republicans supported the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

From Giffords:  “Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children and teens in America—we cannot make it easier for guns to fall into dangerous hands. The president’s priority should be to build on the lifesaving progress made over the last four years, not boost profits for gun company CEOs.” “The Second Amendment isn’t under attack. GIFFORDS built a coalition of thousands of gun owners who, like me, know that there is no conflict between the Second Amendment and commonsense gun safety. Any effort to repeal important, lifesaving measures will harm public safety and put our children at risk. The safety of our families, our children, our schools and our communities is not a partisan issue. That’s not what Americans voted for in November.”

For those of us in the real world, we know the previous administration did absolutely NOTHING life-saving, or to enhance public safety or protect children. In fact, all the measures taken were against law abiding firearm owners by limiting their ability to protect themselves and their families at home and in public. ALL these groups are complicit in the tragedies at schools by making them gun free zones that ensures they have ZERO on-site protection from law enforcement or armed security. And p.s., so-called “gun violence” is not the leading cause of death for children in America. That is a lie. But let’s not go there right now. 

What do we think is going to happen with this? 

First off, given the decisive actions taken from day one by this President, it’s safe to assume this will not be a typical government analyze and bury studies. We should reasonably expect the report in 30 days and for it to be relatively straight forward. 

The fact that the ATF is specifically called out gives us hope their overzealous and unconstitutional attempts to create new, restrictive gun control laws on bump stocks, frames and receivers, forced reset triggers, stabilizing braces and bans on imports and exports could be stopped. We can also hope the zero tolerance administrative actions towards FFL’s (Federal Firearm License) and extreme force raids for non-violent offenses could come to an end as well. 

BUT, we also must understand this Executive Action is directed to the new Attorney General of the Department of Justice (DOJ) who has a history of vigorously supporting so-called “Red Flag” laws, including advising the current President on them during his previous administration. 

Our hope comes from that we have already seen the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, a new federal job for gun control lobbyists inside the walls of the White House, disbanded. 

This Executive Order is significant, especially after previous administrations have done everything in their power to restrict the rights of law-abiding firearm owners and users while doing nothing to prevent or punish those who blatantly violate the laws we already have with impunity. 

We should also not take this as a time to let up on our legal and legislative efforts, especially at the state level. With both chambers of Congress being a near 50/50 split, any significant federal laws having anything to do with Second Amendment protected rights are going to be damn near impossible to push through. 

So, let’s keep our fingers crossed we get the results we want from this Executive Order, and  we can translate this success down to our own states. 

Bob

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MCC 5723 – Firearms Retailer 

WAY BACK in March 2023, I wrote “I called The Latest Operation Choke Point – Paused” about the push of a new MCC (Merchant Category Code) for guns stores. Here’s an update. Without a legal requirement to do so, it is being pushed onto the industry, like it or not. 

As of January 2025, new merchants MUST be assigned the MCC of 5723, Firearms Retailer. This is being imposed on the credit card processors by payment gateway Authorize.net, a wholly owned subsidiary of Visa. The only places exempted are in those states that have outlawed the use of a specific merchant category code for firearms and firearm related businesses. 

The states that have mandated the use of this MCC are California, Colorado and New York.

The states that have outlawed the use of this MCC are Florida, Idaho, North Dakota, West Virginia, Texas, Montana, Mississippi, Utah, Iowa, Wyoming, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana, Indiana, Alabama and Kentucky.

This means if you are in a state that has NOT outlawed it, but also NOT requiring it, you are getting it anyway. 

Why is this important? 

As I said in my original article, this has absolutely nothing to do with their stated purpose of being a law enforcement investigative tool. It was advertised as being all about ‘public safety’ by allowing credit card companies to flag suspicious purchases and report them to law enforcement, thereby (somehow) preventing mass shootings. 

IF the intention was to be able to track purchases made at a firearm retailer/Federal Firearms License (FFL), the credit card industry and gun-control zealots already had a way to do this. A quick trip to the ATFE (Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives) website allows you to download the complete current list of every FFL in the country in .xlsx, .txt or .pdf format. Even someone with prehistoric programming skills like me could write a program to flag sales from any firearm retailer in real time in about 15 minutes.

Side note: How many industries do you know where the entire list of retailers is available to everyone with only a click required to download it?

The actual purpose is to allow the card issuing banks, or even Visa and the other credit card companies themselves, to be able to deny credit card purchases from firearm retailers, period. Sadly, this is already occurring. There are already many reports around the country of banks who have denied their customers purchases at firearm retailers. Their moral high ground is they don’t want their company being used to legally purchase firearms. 

The new MCC would be much less of a burden for large retailers such as Bass Pro/Cabela’s, Walmart, etc. who already have multiple MCC’s for different areas of their stores. Therefore, denying purchases from the firearm retailer MCC would only stop purchase in the firearms area of the store. What this MCC can do is stop smaller firearm retailers from making any sales because they use a single credit card processor for all sales, firearms and non-firearm related.

Your local bank is the current battleground for your Second Amendment rights. Gun-control zealots have long pressured financial institutions into not working with firearms industry, from the largest manufacturers to your local mom-and-pop shop. Ask any firearm related business how difficult it is to get bank accounts or credit card processing in many areas of the country. The firearm retailer MCC is simply another attack on the ability of consumers to buy firearms.

Where do we go from here?

A new federal bill has been reintroduced this year, H.R. 7450: Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act. This would “prohibit payment card networks and covered entities from requiring the use of or assigning merchant category codes that distinguish a firearms retailer from general-merchandise retailer or sporting-goods retailer, and for other purposes.”


If you live in one of the states that has NOT yet outlawed the use of this MCC, it’s time for you to contact your elected representatives and ask/demand they put forth legislation to stop it. Yes, even if you live in a left wing dominated state like I do. 

For everyone – it’s time to let your federal representatives and senators know how you feel about this, even if they are traditionally gun control inclined. As we’ve already seen in the 118th Congress, even with a Republican majority in the House and Senate, the RINO crowd is strong and needs to be reminded if they aren’t going to represent our interests, then they can be replaced by someone who will. 

By the by, does it make sense now why they want to get rid of cash and go to digital currency? 

Bob

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