EBay Changes Firearms Policy

Posted May 15th 2012 | By:  

christophereger

 More Articles By christophereger (206)

 2 Comments

• Tweet

  Email

  Print

This week eBay, arguably the largest online auction site in the world, took a step closer to supporting the Second Amendment. In a press release they state,

"eBay's Hunting category has expanded to include more items. Now you can list the following firearm parts and accessories on the eBay US site (eBay.com) with domestic shipping:

Enbloc clips

Barrels

Bolts

Choke tubes

Cylinders

Firing pins

Hammers

Magazines with a capacity to accept 10 rounds or less (high-capacity magazines that can accept more than 10 rounds are not allowed)

Slides

Trigger assemblies"

Further, they state,

"You may now show your accessories on a firearm in your photo, as long as it is not an assault weapon and there is no indication in the listing that the firearm is included in the sale."

Apparently, eBay still uses the technically incorrect term 'assault rifle' and states that:

"Listing accessories related to assault weapons is still prohibited on eBay. If your accessory is compatible with other weapons as well as assault weapons, you may list it, but may not mention any assault weapon compatibility. The listing of firearms, replica firearms, ammunition, and other firearm-related items is still prohibited on eBay."

With this announcement, it would be a good idea to look at eBay's past firearms policies.


When they started in 1995, eBay allowed sellers to list and sell firearms. By 1999, in a slap to the face of many faithful buyers and sellers, the site prohibited firearms listings. However, they still allowed the sale of gun parts, holsters, magazines, barrels, and basically everything but live ammunition and complete firearms/FFL-required items. I managed to buy a few fully loaded upper receivers and later resell one I did not like on the site.

When the site prohibited firearm and ammunition sales in 1999, purpose built online firearms auction companies such as GunsAmerica, AuctionArms and Gunbroker took off. With their Second Amendment friendly policies and ease of use, they have seen steady growth.

On April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho, an example of hate shaped like a man, shot and killed 32 people and wounded 17 others in two separate attacks, approximately two hours apart, before committing suicide on the Virginia Tech campus. Within days, the media began harping on where the lunatic shopped for his firearms and accessories from. It was reported that Cho bought some of his Walther P22 magazines through eBay auctions. Responding to a public outcry after the fact, the online auction site acted. It did not take a rocket scientist or a fortuneteller to see that the site, which has $27-Billion (with a B) in sales per year, needed to limit its liability.

As William S Burroughs said, "After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns
away from the people who didn't do it."

By August of that year, the eBay announced they would, "prohibit listings of any firearm part required for the firing on a gun. This includes items like bullet tips, brass casings and shells, barrels, slides, cylinders, magazines, firing pins, trigger assemblies, etc."

At roughly the same time, eBay acquired ownership of PayPal. For those of you that do not know, PayPal is one of the largest internet banking transfer sites available. From its inception, PayPal became well known in 2A circles as a fast and easy way to literally email people money. This made interstate sales much faster and simpler. However, with the new parent company’s strict firearms policies, many tales of PayPal going after the accounts of Gunbroker/AuctionArms/GunsAmerica sellers and buyers who transferred legal items became legend. With eBay’s lightening of its self-imposed regulations, it remains to be seen what PayPal will do.

Many in the firearms community felt that with this action, eBay sent the message that they did not want or appreciate law-abiding gun owners’ business. By banning these legal products, eBay by default chose the anti-gun movement’s opposition to all legal gun ownership.

With this new announcement, maybe it is a sign that even this bastion of anti-firearms enterprises is warming to the reality of their customers really are.

Posted in

Politics and News

and Tagged with

ebay guns, paypal guns, ebay progun, antigun paypal

• Tweet

  Email   Print

WE RECOMMEND

• 
  Woman Saves Hubby with Empty Shotgun
• 
  Is Everything Returning To Normal
• 
  3D Printed Pistol Gets Shut Down by State Department
• 
  Put a Saiga Mag on Your 870 or Moss 500
• 
  2 Rounds Over and You Go To Jail

2 COMMENTS

 Leave Comment

rachilders

Posted: 

May 16, 2012  •  12:36 AM

Personally, I think eBay took a look at the amount of money the company lost with it's "no guns allowed" policies and decided it was too big a loss to keep the policy in place, at least totally. It's all about the bottom
line... is being PC worth the hit to eBay's pocketbook.

 

HiPowerGuy54

Posted: 

May 22, 2012  •  01:52 AM

It is good that Ebay revisited their last decision about ads on their website. It actually worked in favor of the general public in this instance, as it helped to create GunBroker.com and several other Gun Auction sites as well on
the web. Usually it is politics and nothing else that drives these decisions and I will give you the latest example;

Every time there is a tragic shooting of any type ( meaning individual or mass ), the very first thing you hear
is to "TAKE AWAY THE GUNS"!!! Well, most well educated and common sense individuals know this is not the solution since there are OVER 20,000 gun laws/restrictions on the books through out the country.

But all these
guys looking for a quick sound bite just can't help themselves and get the pot stirred up. Latest Example:

The Trayvon Martin shooting. This is a very tragic, yet, VERY AVOIDABLE incident that has every one screaming about the
"Stand your ground" defense at first. When this issue does not even merit consideration. My reasoning- Well....as soon the police or 911 operator "instructed him" NOT to follow the "suspect", all bets
are off and this guy has broken the law right here if anything else follows, which we all know did.

But everyone over looks this ( until just recently at least ) and wants to jump on the band wagon and blame the laws. Perfect
example of existing laws that NEED to be enforcd instead of looking for more useless and restrictive laws that do nothing for the bad guys and limit the good guys.

I am glad that this is finally getting the attention to detail
that it deserves, and feel bad for the family of the young man who lost his life. Now they are bringing up stuff to smear his name about THC in his system, trouble in school, etc etc. They kinda of did the same with the guy who
shot him also. In a way we needto know all the info surrounding the facts, but the news goes to the extreme sometimes and almost NEVER zero's in on the real issue.

Every non justified mass or individual shooting is tragic
because someone innocent had to pay the price for usually just being at the wrong place at the wrong time ( don't mean to sound so cut and dry but,... ). And the news is NOT digging deep enough into this fiasco with the Federal
Government hiding the facts about moving all those guns into Mexico and them being used to KILL our own law enforcement men. I don't even hear law enforcement screaming that loud about this and demanding proper investigations.
Have any heads rolled...of course not...probably a few got a promotion or early retirement. I am no psychic, but moving thousands of unregistered firearms is a HUGE issue without the proper investigaton being provided and tracing
it back to the original decision makers being identified.

George Zimmerman may be a good guy at heart, Trayvon Martin could have been a great kid with a little mischif in him ( which many of us had in us :-), but when Zimmerman
decided not to abide by the instructions given to him, and take the law into his own hands, that is where the buck stops as far as I am concerned. So "Stand your Ground" does not even come into play as it is a law that
SHOULD be on the books. Why would a inocent individual with "NO OTHER OPTIONS" not be able or just to defend themselves.."Lawfully".

One MAJOR point that never seems to make the news is that "Every state
that has passed a concealed carry permit for law abiding citizens to easily acquire, has seen the CRIME RATES REDUCED in that state. Hmmm why is this FACT never put out in front for EVERYONE to see and understand.

I would think
that we all should have that information.


Any ways...just a few of my thoughts for now.....:-)