Gun sales will be specifically marked by credit companies to help monitor purchases

Visa said on Sept. 10 that gun sales would be earmarked in transaction histories. It is a decision that will hopefully prevent these purchases from flying under the radar of investigators. The change was also adopted by other credit card companies.

The decision came after the International Standards Organization, a global body that establishes standards across the financial services industry, made an announcement. Previously, these sales were lumped in with "general merchandise" or "miscellaneous" sales. The customer's transaction will be explicitly stated in the four digit code.

Guns Down America is a national gun violence prevention organization that focuses on legislative advocacy and reducing gun sales. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been more than 39,000 gun-related deaths in the US in the last four years.

The categorization rules may help reduce gun crime by making it easier to record suspicious gun sales. The decision was spurred by a coalition of gun reform organizations and supporters.

There are rules for credit card companies to follow. The founder and executive director of Guns Down America said that the decision would make it easier to stop illegal firearms activity.

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Congressional Democrats provided additional pressure on the international organization to change. The creation of a new merchant category code for gun retailers was urged by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Madeleine Dean. An investigation by CBS News in June found that industry leaders had previously blocked an application to create such avenues for oversight.

The industry as a whole is moving towards closer monitoring of the more than 9000 US gun sellers who don't have a merchant code.

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Patterns of gun purchases being made in multiple gun shops are indicators that there may be gun sales meant for black markets. "We could see the patterns of behavior that would indicate to us that there is something not right here," said the Amalgamated Bank CEO. We have an obligation to address crime that is happening through our system.

According to the Giffords Law Center, federal law requires gun sales to be recorded by licensed merchants and retained until their business is discontinued, but this doesn't apply to private sellers. Federal background checks for gun sales have to be destroyed after 24 hours. Tracking sales is harder because of this.

Major banking institutions will have to decide if they will adopt the standard and monitor gun purchases after Visa, Mastercard, and American Express announced they would.

Gun reform activists are already pressing on with their calls for greater federal oversight to address the nation's gun violence crisis despite the fact that many gun lobbyists are angered by the proposed change.