Facebook Is Making You Sell Your Guns Elsewhere
Facebook has banned gun sales on its site as well as on Instagram.
Facebook has banned private gun sales on its social networks. The company has said that it would remove posts and potentially ban accounts that violate its regulated goods policies, which now includes the unlicensed sale of guns on Instagram as well.
No Gun Sales Through Facebook
I’ll admit that I’m a bit troubled that Facebook is essentially equating gun sales with drug sales as the latter is illegal while the former is not. This seems to be more of a political statement, but they’re a private company and can make whatever policy it chooses.
It’s interesting how, on the one hand, the same individuals who will fight to the death to allow corporations to be able to do what they please instantly cry foul when Facebook bans guns from being sold on its website. Facebook isn’t making person to person sales illegal. They are simply disallowing the private sale of guns using their venue.
Selling military grade body armor, guns, high capacity clips, and boxes of ammo is probably not what Mark Zuckerberg wanted or intended. If you support gun ownership and the 2nd Amendment, going through the proper channels to purchase guns is important and Facebook probably isn’t one of those channels. If somebody wants to buy a gun, they should do so at establishments requiring and enforcing background checks while establishing a paper trail. Law abiding gun owners or potential gun owners will be willing to go through a background check as they have nothing to hide.
It’s amazing these systems are even in place to detect private gun sales. This is one venue of hopefully many in the private sector that will stop illegal gun sales. Cynically, I think liability is the motivating force here. If a gun was purchased through Facebook, and that gun was used in a mass shooting, there would be massive outrage.
