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Facebook Wants To Block Illegal Gun Sales
Nerval's Lobster writes "Most of the time, Facebook allows its users to hawk goods or solicit donations on Pages or Timeline postings, comparing such activity to placing a physical note on a bulletin board at a supermarket. Now it plans on regulating users who rely on this method to sell what it calls 'regulated' items, which includes firearms. 'Any time we receive a report on Facebook about a post promoting the private sale of a commonly regulated item, we will send a message to that person reminding him or her to comply with relevant laws and regulations. We will also limit access to that post to people over the age of 18,' Facebook announced as part of the new rules. The social network will also prevent users from posting any sort of items 'that indicate a willingness to evade or help others evade the law,' which means no offers to sell firearms across state lines or without a background check. Presumably, Facebook will have filters in place that allow it to scan for such content. Facebook is a private network, of course, and not (despite its ubiquity) a public utility — meaning it can do whatever it wants with regard to Terms of Use. But that likely won't stop some people from complaining about what they perceive as the company overstepping its boundaries."
It's expressly legal for private inviduals to sell to other private individuals (without crossing state lines) without a background check; indeed it's *illegal* for said private individuals to perform such a background check, at least on the federal level.
Now you may have some sort of state/local law that requires checks between inviduals, but sheesh.
-- I ain't broke, but I'm badly bent.
FB is lying, yet again. They are currently deleting ALL firearms for sale/buy posts.
So, Facebook will start harassing people who sell guns... and people will just go somewhere else to buy and sell guns.
Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if a number of sites cropped up for just that purpose - the legal transfer of a firearm from one private citizen to another.
You can't stop the signal.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Yes, I love selling to criminals, you know most gangbangers love buying $1500 AR-15's and $4500 AR-50 sniperrifles, you see them all over the place with these guns in the street. They paint Converse logos on them, and get them gold plated to match their spinner rims YO! The Gangers love big guns that attract attention and are expensive as hell!
Why do you think they wear big baggy pants, that is the only way to hide a 6 foot long gun while you walk the streets looking for targets. I now offer to sellers getting them engraved with "thug life" and gold plating the Uppers.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
First, how do you even define an "assault weapon." An "assault rifle," as defined by Wikipedia is capable of select-fire (AKA machine gun). Those are 100% not OK to just sell, as you need a $200 federal permit, and the approval of a local law-enforcement agency.
However, the term "assault weapon" is more fuzzy, at least according to Wikipedia.
What I absolutely love is how the definition (to borrow from Wikipedia again) includes:
Wow. Adding a safety feature and cosmetic features changes the categories. This makes as much sense as taking a street-legal car, painting it red, adding a rear spoiler, roll bars, and suddenly it is a race car that is not legal for street use.
Seriously, all of this talk about assault weapons gets tiresome. If somebody was shooting at me, the color of the rifle and the presence or absence of a pistol grip would be the last thing on my mind.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
I use the liberal definition. It's scary and black.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
And we, gun owners, are free to criticize FB to do so.
That definition did not work out so well when applied to people. Nothing makes me think that it will work much better here.
After a shooting, the government tries to make us safer by restricting the rights of the 99.999% of the people who did nothing wrong.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
However, the term "assault weapon" is more fuzzy, at least according to Wikipedia.
Wikipedia has it right, in its own "being unbiased in the wording" way.
"Assault Rifle" is a technical term in warfare. It first applied to a particluar select-fire rifle short enough to avoid getting hung up when popping up through the hatch of a tank to fire at surrounding infantry (or otherwise going through tight spaces), and since has been applied to others with simiilar characteristics. This trades away some accuracy for rapid fire and rapid movement.
"Assault Weapon" is a term invented by antigunners and defined in particular laws, to confuse the population about proposed gun control laws by making them appear to be banning military design Assault Rifles when they actually ban a hodge-podge of civilian guns based on some arbitrary (and juristiction-specific) set of characteristics typically unrelated to any objective standard of danger or functionaity.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
For instance, an AR-15 clone is an evil assault weapon.
A Mini-14 is on the exempt list, so it's not. Even if you modify the Mini-14 to have a pistol grip, a large capacity magazine, a flash suppressor, a tac-rail, it is STILL EXEMPT!
So even if it looks just like the AR-15 clone from more than five feet, the AR-15 is an EVIL ASSAULT WEAPON!!1!1, and the Mini-14 is a prefectly legal varmint rifle....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I'm gonna be negatively commented out, but I disagree with that law. It has become too damn easy to create "felon" out of non-violent crime. Heck, you can become a felon over sheer copyright infringement, or because you were in the wrong place when you were 15 and got caught smoking marijuana... As a result, your constitutional right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness is made void, without any chance to redeem yourself.
What we called today the "Wild West" was probably more civilized than some poor metropolitan area today... As for the gun ban argument, have a look to Australia and UK, whose rate of violent crime has never been so high, while they have utter strict gun law.