eBay's Ill-Timed Lifetime Achievement Webby

theodp writes "eBay CEO Meg Whitman will accept a special Webby Lifetime Achievement Award next month on behalf of the eBay Community, which has 'permanently changed the way people connect, discover and interact with each other.' Perhaps by then, people will have forgotten how eBay enabled buyer 'Blazers5505' to hook up with sellers like 'oneclickshooting' just weeks before the worst mass shooting in modern US history, prompting eBay to issue a gun-parts-don't-kill-students-guns-and-ammo-do statement that showed little evidence of its celebrated commitment to social consciousness. CEO Whitman, who received $11.1M last year for her leadership efforts, has kept a low profile since tooting eBay's trust-and-safety horn for Wall Street analysts two days after the Va. Tech rampage."

Comments

Dear editors...

[Otter]

I read that and wondered if the same guy has been submitting all the recent stories along this line: "[Company] is going to be participating in [some event]. I wonder if people are going to bring up [some random issue that I will now hold forth upon]?"

Yup, same guy. If it's necessary to give him a soapbox, perhaps you could at least remove the dishonest framing of these pieces as news?

Re:No, false

[Anonymous Coward]

I know it's not a big deal. It certainly doesn't bother me when folks call magazines clips, but just in case anyone out there wanted to be informed what the difference is:

A magazine is enclosed. All the bullets are inside of it. These are the things you see on TV.

A clip is a length of metal retainer that bullets slide onto. It holds them in a row and feeds into (my opinion) antiquated weapons. Picture: http://www.swissrifles.com/ammo/comparison.jpg

There are also belts (like rambo used) and drums (which is a neatly folded belt in a box)

I bought my magazines on ebay. The ones that came with my pistol are expensive and I wanted cheap ones for when I practice (ten dollars each vs 35 dollars each). I fail to see the issue here. I can buy magazines in town without any problems anyway. Some psycho guy could easily make a bomb or buy illegal weapons. Yeah, this time he used legal means to get armed. It's worth considering that the recent mall shooting and all the school shootings occurred in gun free zones, that some school shootings have been stopped by legal gun-owners, and that there are plenty of reasonable complaints to make against ebay without this silliness.

eh, whatever.

Gunbroker.com is ebay for arms and ordnance.

[thumper666]

gunbroker link

This is an eBay-like setup for people to sell guns across the internet. Before the anti-gun hyperventilators (like the submitter) start, guns can only be shipped to a Federal Firearms License holder (or a C&R, but that's a special case that I won't go into). You then go to them and have a federal background check performed on you, and you pick up your gun.

Many computer nerds I know often buy rare machineguns this way. (no, not semi-auto Democrat-newspeak "assault weapons", real belt-fed working machineguns like MG-42s and M2HBs as well as full auto assault rifles like the M16)

Occasionally, a 105mm howitzer (includes 20 rounds free!), RPG, or 20mm anti-aircraft cannon will show up on gunbroker as well. Yes, private citizens can easily own WORKING assault rifles, frag grenades, machineguns, howitzers, smart bombs, and anti-aircraft cannons. No legal citizen-owned machinegun, mortar, bomb, howitzer, or grenade has ever been used in any crime. Ever.

It's also interesting to note that there's no explicit regulation prohibiting you from owning, say , a nuclear-armed cruise missile - it's just you can't find anyone willing to sell them to you.

Re:Quibbling perhaps, but illustratitive

[MaggieL]

Why is it that a certain segment of the gun-owning populace immediately jumps to the conclusion that there's some grand-scale movement to try to completely ban guns every time limitations on gun ownership are brought up?

Gee, I dunno.

http://www.controlarms.org/

http://www.bradychamppaign.org/

"If it were up to me,I would tell Mr. and Mrs. America to turn them in--turn them all in." -Dianne Feinstein

Re:Quibbling perhaps, but illustratitive

[Arcane_Rhino]

Why is it that a certain segment of the gun-owning populace immediately jumps to the conclusion that there's some grand-scale movement to try to completely ban guns every time limitations on gun ownership are brought up?

Maybe it is because there is.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2007/2 00407banguns.htm

http://www.gunscholar.org/gunban.htm

http://vgoc.org/VGOCNov04.pdf

Re:Are They Hypocritical?

[operagost]

As an amusing note, probably due to the amount of ammunition expended, news programs were claiming that the Clinton weapons ban that expired would have prevented him from killing so many people because of the "high-capacity" magazines. They didn't seem to realize that it's quite easy to carry a satchel full of loaded 10-round (legal during the ban) magazines and exchange them quickly with some practice-- which is what Cho did.

Re:Nice flamebait

[EQ]

What do you expect?

Look at the "editor". kdawson again. He's responsible for more troll and flambeiat crap than anyone else on slashdot. What I want to know is why they gave him editor powers - and why he stall has them after he blatantly abuses them time after time to promote his agenda? This article is from a personal log here by Theodp (again, seems to be a kdawson fave), and is so poorly written and poorly reasoned that its obviously carp. If kdawson keeps falling for this and posting irrelevant crap, they need to get rid of him as an editor.

If I want to red this kind of specious attack on capitalism, ebay or guns, I can go get it at indymedia or daily Kos.

Hey KDawson, keep it up, you'll enter Katz territory soon. Everyone: I advise tagging stories like this "kdawsontroll"