H.R. 1181 prohibits payment card networks and financial institutions
from requiring or assigning merchant category codes, or MCCs, that
single out firearm retailers for separate tracking and monitoring.
  Unfortunately, we have seen repeated examples of progressive
regulators and government officials pressuring financial institutions
to target lawful industries and lawful customers.
  From Operation Choke Point under the Obama administration and Choke
Point 2.0 under Biden to New York financial regulators pressuring
insurance companies to abandon longstanding relationships with the NRA,
Americans have legitimate reasons to be concerned about the
weaponization of the financial system.
  Despite what those on the other side of the aisle may say, this bill
does nothing to prevent law enforcement or regulators from
investigating criminal activity, nor does it change the stringent
requirements on financial institutions to comply with existing anti-
money laundering laws or suspicious activity reporting requirements.
  However, what my friend from California who just spoke doesn't say,
but it needs to be said, is that the lawful purchase of a firearm
protected by the Second Amendment is not in and of itself suspicious
activity, nor should it be surveilled by the government.
  What it does is prevent the creation of a framework that could be
used to monitor, flag, and discourage lawful purchases from federally
licensed firearm retailers.
  This is about preventing government actors from using financial data
to target Americans who are engaged in conduct expressly protected by
the Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms, a fundamental
liberty for Americans.
  Americans should not have to worry that lawful purchases that they
made will be used to create lists, databases, or surveillance tools
aimed at this constitutionally protected activity.

                              {time}  1540

  My friend, the ranking member from California, cited statistics about
annual and daily deaths that she says are the result of gun violence.
Respectfully, the right to bear arms is not the cause of violence. One
murder is too many in America, period. We all agree on that.
  Rather than blaming gun violence, Congress would be more productive
focusing on the root causes of homicide: the breakdown of the family,
lack of active parenting, mental illness, open-border policies,
policies to defund the police, soft-on-crime policies like no cash
bail, and politically motivated violence, like the kind that was behind
the murder of Charlie Kirk. Addressing these societal problems does not
require unconstitutional surveillance of Americans.
  H.R. 1181 establishes commonsense guardrails to prevent regulatory
abuse and safeguards constitutional freedoms.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Frost) who has been active on this issue of gun violence.
  Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose the Protecting Privacy in
Purchases Act.
  Sponsors claim this bill prevents the privacy of gun owners, but in
reality, it protects mass shooters, terrorists, gun traffickers, and
the profits of the firearms industry.
  Financial institutions have already been using merchant codes to
detect crimes like money laundering and human trafficking. They should
be allowed to use that same responsible monitoring to help prevent gun
violence.
  I know personally why this matters. The Pulse nightclub shooter
opened up six new credit cards in 8 months. He racked up more than
$26,000 in credit card charges on guns and ammunition in the days
before his killing spree in the middle of my district in my home of
Orlando, Florida.
  Our system failed to turn those warning signs into an alert for
police. He murdered 49 angels in my community and wounded another 49.
  Instead of helping to prevent the next tragedy, this bill makes it
easier for those warning signs to be missed yet again. It strips law
enforcement of an essential tool to stop violence before it happens,
making every community in our Nation less safe.
  For this reason, at the appropriate time, I will offer a motion to
recommit this bill back to committee. If the House rules permitted, I
would have offered an important amendment to make clear that nothing in
this bill should prevent law enforcement from using merchant category
codes to assist in investigating and preventing acts of terrorism.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of this
amendment into the Record immediately prior to the vote on the motion
to recommit.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. DesJarlais). Is there objection to the
request of the gentleman from Florida?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues will join me in voting
for the motion to recommit.
  Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman
from Ohio (Mr. Jordan), the distinguished chair of the House Judiciary
Committee.
  Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, you don't give up your Fourth Amendment rights when you
are exercising your Second Amendment rights. That is what is happening
out there: People's privacy is being invaded. These merchant codes are
there so the government can abuse them and track you.
  If you don't think I am right about this, we have the evidence:
January 15, 2021, an email from the FBI to Bank of America saying give
us every debit card and credit card purchase for anyone in Washington,
D.C., for these particular dates. That is bad enough. You are allowed
to travel in this country, too. That is a right we have. Here is what
they also say: Also, overlay that with any historic purchase for
weapons or weapons-related purchases.
  What? We want to know what you bought when you were at a certain
location, and we want to know if you ever purchased a gun anytime in
your life with that credit card or debit card. That is what the FBI
asked Bank of America to do.
  That is how dangerous this practice is. That is why the sponsor from
West Virginia, the chairman, and the committee's work is so good. God
bless them.
  You don't give up your Fourth Amendment rights. Our Constitution
protects our First, Second, and Fourth Amendment liberties--all of
them. They are all important. That is why this legislation is critical.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his good work and Mr. Moore
from West Virginia for sponsoring the bill.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Green), the ranking member of the Oversight and
Investigations Subcommittee, who has always been an advocate against
gun violence.
  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank those who had the foresight
to declare that all persons are created equal and endowed by their
creator with certain unalienable rights, among them: life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness.
  You are not giving up your constitutional rights when you are doing
what you can to protect life. I have been to the funerals. I have seen
the people who have lost their loved ones to gun violence. At some
point we have to do more than contend that privacy trumps the right to
life. The person's right to life trumps privacy, especially when no
court has said that this is unconstitutional.
  Mr. Speaker, that is pure speculation on behalf of some people. I
believe that the right to life trumps this right to privacy that they
are contending.
  Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman
from New Jersey (Mr. Van Drew).
  Mr. VAN DREW. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bill.
  This is not about crime. It is about control. Once you can flag a
purchase, any purchase, you can flag a person. Once you can flag a
person, you can control what they buy, what banks they use, and even
what they believe. It is wrong. It is un-American.

  This bill is not just about guns. It is about the precedent that was
set. If we allow financial institutions to become the surveillance arm
of one party's political agenda today, there will be no limit to what
gets flagged tomorrow.