A House Republican introduced legislation Tuesday that would prohibit financial institutions from using electronic transaction codes to trace purchases of firearms and ammunition.

Financial institutions use these codes, known as a Merchant Category Code, to organize data on the different types of purchases. Gun-rights advocates fear it could be used to create a database of firearm owners.

Rep. Riley M. Moore of West Virginia, who put forth the Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act to bar an MCC for gun and ammo transactions, said banks and credit card companies should not be able to compile data on gun owners.

“I’ve spent the better part of my short career in public service fighting financial institutions that push a political agenda,” Mr. Moore said. “Let me be clear: Any attempt to collect data on Americans simply exercising their God-given rights is wrong, and I won’t stand for it.”

He blamed the Biden administration’s pressure on financial institutions to hand over data on their customers.

“The possibility of a private database of gun owners falling into the hands of a future anti-gun administration is unacceptable,” he said.

Mr. Moore’s bill is expected to pass in the House but it will have an uphill climb to clear the 60-vote threshold to survive in the Senate.

The bill has 26 co-sponsors.

Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, the lead co-sponsor, said, “The American people are fed up with gun-grabbing liberals’ attempts to encroach on their Constitutionally protected rights.”

Republican-led states including Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Texas and West Virginia passed legislation last year that prevents the government from invading financial privacy when consumers purchase firearms and ammunition.

Those states also leaped to pass legislation when GOP lawmakers in January 2024 showed that the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network spied on Americans’ gun purchases using the MCC.

FinCEN’s policing of financial transactions is intended to combat terrorist money laundering.

Congressional Republicans have been eyeing new federal laws to mimic what states such as Florida have done.

Meanwhile, some Democratic-led states have moved in the other direction.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law requiring the use of a firearm-retailer-specific MCC. Colorado is considering similar measures.

The idea of a firearm-retailer-specific MCC sprang from New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, who suggested it in 2018 following the Parkland, Florida, mass shooting. He wrote that banks and credit card companies should create the code for gun-related transactions at stores that sell firearms.

He proposed cutting off gun purchases by throttling the use of credit cards. Gun control advocates and Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate embraced the idea.

• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.