By Bob Unruh
A major credit card company has issued a letter to a gun dealer canceling his payment processing services because of corporate concerns firearms were being sold to consumers in other states, in "a non face-to-face environment." Now the move has raised the ire of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
"Your anti-gun corporate policy is based on ignorance of the law applicable to the sale of firearms," the NSSF wrote in response to the action taken by First Data Corp., which operates Citi Merchant Services.
"It is perfectly legal, in fact commonplace, for a federal firearms licensee in one state to sell a firearm to a non-licensee (consumer) from another state," the foundation continued. "What you fail to appreciate is that the firearm is not shipped in interstate commerce directly to the consumer. Rather, as required by federal law, the firearm is shipped by the selling licensee to another federal firearms licensee in the state of residence of the consumer … The consumer acquires the firearm from that licensed dealer in a face-to-face transaction…."
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The issue arose when Citi Merchant Services, in a letter signed by June Rivera-Mantilla in the "Periodic Review" department, informed CDNN ...   more »