Financial tracking of Ohio gun buyers banned

Gun owners in Ohio won’t have to worry about firearm purchases being tracked by financial institutions or having to carry liability insurance.

Senate Bill 58, one of a series of bills signed into law late Wednesday by Gov. Mike DeWine, received backing from pro-gun organizations like the National Rifle Association and Buckeye Firearms. But the Ohio Mayors Alliance and the Ohio Municipal League both opposed it.

Known as the Second Amendment Financial Privacy Act, the new law stops government entities from keeping a list of privately owned firearms or firearm owners and prohibits banks and other financial institutions from assigning a firearms code in a way that distinguishes a firearms retailer from other retailers.

The law, originally introduced in March, attacks a rule established by four major credit card companies that would create a new four-digit code to classify merchants by their business, specifically those that sell guns and ammunition.

I disagree with your last statment. Everything is ours to decide unless specifically given to the feds or usurped by a State government. 10th Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

But I’m a bit of a literalist....

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States,”

Violations of the Bill of Rights are prohibited to the states via the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

Here are the literal words:

“No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The words were designed to protect the Bill of Rights from violation by state and local governments.

“Some merchants will accept gift cards which can be purchased for cash.”

That would be downright foolish to do, for both online and phone purchases, and unnecessary for local purchases (just use cash there).

First, the gift cards can be lost or stolen in the mail/shipping, or the merchant can claim they were never received; second, they would make a very difficult situation for canceling or contesting a purchase and getting the funds back—credit cards convey some strong customer protection and advocacy, especially AmEx; and third, merchants would likely hold up the transaction until the gift cards have totally gone through and provided them with the funds—with credit cards, it’s nearly instantaneous approval (or disapproval, in case of fraud) of the payment.

For a while I was buying select items with cash-purchased USPS money orders, but for items over $1000, it was necessary to buy more than one PO Money Order, and I had to use secure mail to send them (no first class, thank you very much), for more $, and many merchants were afraid to ship the goods until at least a week after depositing the money orders at their banks (and few wanted to go stand in line at the PO’s to cash the money orders there), for fear of forgeries. And what a pain to have to fill out the info on the USPS money orders (stubs and payment halves). True, many merchants have been passing their credit card fees onto customers, but it’s still better than going to the bank for cash, then to the PO or a store for the gift cards or money orders, and then having to ship the payments. I had even gone to using bank-issued cashier’s (”official”) checks, but merchants began delaying shipments with those for fear of forgeries.

...the gift cards can be lost or stolen in the mail/shipping, or the merchant can claim they were never received...

????

You wouldn't mail the gift cards to the merchant, you'd enter the card info into the merchant's online form, just like you do with a credit card.

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