Credit card purchases of guns are now trackable

The United States of America that appears outside cinema and television can be a strange country. Last week, the Geneva-based International Organisation for Standardisation (IOS) approved 'merchant category code' for firearm stores.

So, guns bought through credit cards will now be trackable and 'suspicious purchases' be brought to the notice of law authorities. Many favouring 'gun control' (sic) in the US, a country along with others like Afghanistan, where many states allow over-the-counter purchases of guns without much hassle, have welcomed this 'check and balance'. Our reaction: people can buy guns using their credit cards there?! Cultural relativism, it seems, flows from the barrel of a gun.

The big shift that has occurred is, don't hold your aim, IOS moving shops selling guns from the category of 'miscellaneous retail stores' or 'sporting goods stores' to a separate 'gun sellers' category. Most Americans, apparently, use cash to buy guns. Some fintech companies that provide easy EMI options pooh-pooh this 'radical change'.

They reason that debit cards can be (and is) used as a gun payment option - and debit cards don't fall under the purview of the new IOS measure - making this smart move hardly 'bulletproof'. For us, America remains a strange realm. They buy guns more easily than drugs.