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Facebook Expands Online Commerce Role, But Says "No Guns, Please"

Posted by timothy on from the blunt-objects-next-on-the-list dept.

The New York Times reports that Facebook's newly staked-out role as a site to facilitate local, person-to-person sales (ala Craigslist) has a new wrinkle: the site has announced a site-wide policy restricting firearms sales that applies to personal sales, though not to licensed dealers or gun clubs. According to the story, Although Facebook was not directly involved in gun sales, it has served as a forum for gun sales to be negotiated, without people having to undergo background checks. The social network, with 1.6 billion monthly visitors, had become one of the worldâ(TM)s largest marketplaces for guns and was increasingly evolving into an e-commerce site where it could facilitate transactions of goods. ... Facebook said it would rely on its vast network of users to report any violations of the new rules, and would remove any post that violated the policy. Beyond that, the company said it could ban users or severely limit the ways they post on Facebook, depending on the type and severity of past violations. If the company believed someoneâ(TM)s life was in danger, Facebook would work with law enforcement on the situation. The policy applies as well to private sales that occur using Facebook Messenger, though the company does not scan Messenger exchanges and must rely on user reports.

7 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. Guns actually protect people by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Guns don't kill, unregulated easy access to firearms does.

    Um... actually...

    Firstly, private gun sales are legal. Facebook is making a blanket policy which is politically charged, which could also be applied to arranging abortions, distasteful speech, consensual sex of any non-mainstream type, and a host of others that anyone can come up with after a few minutes thought.

    So in effect, they are suppressing behaviour that is completely legal.

    Secondly, although guns do seem to kill a lot of people, the overall statistic of importance to check is "average expected lifespan", which is much *higher* in areas where there is easy legal access to guns.

    To put this another way, if you let your kids play in the yard of a gun owner, their chance of being killed by that gun go way up, but their chances of death by *all causes* go down. If you can't maintain proper nutrition or medicine for a time because you got robbed, it affects your overall lifespan. If your neighbor has guns, it has a protective effect on you because criminals tend to go elsewhere, and so on.

    Thirdly, if you like to compare England to the US, consider this Harvard study which finds (journal page 656):

    [...] despite constant and substantially increasing gun ownership, the United States saw progressive and dramatic reductions in criminal violence in the 1990s.On the other hand, the same time period in the United Kingdom saw a constant and dramatic increase in violent crime to which England’s response was evermore drastic gun control including, eventually, banning and confiscating all handguns and many types of long guns. Nevertheless, criminal violence rampantly increased so that by 2000 England surpassed the United States to become one of the developed world’s most violenceridden nations..

    To conserve the resources of the inundated criminal justice system, English police no longer investigate burglary and “minor assaults.” As of 2006, if the police catch a mugger, robber, or burglar, or other “minor” criminal in the act, the policy is to release them with a warning rather than to arrest and prosecute them.

    Easy access to firearms actually protects people.

    Personally, I dislike being mugged, robbed, burgled, and assaulted in *minor* manners, but

    ...if that floats your boat please continue telling us about the perils of easy access to firearms.

    1. Re:Guns actually protect people by meglon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If correlation = causation, there may be something else we need to take a look at: http://politicsthatwork.com/gr...

      The rest of these point out that you're statement of "easy access to firearms actually protects people" is most likely bullshit.

      http://www.factcheck.org/2015/...

      http://www.nationaljournal.com...

      http://www.nydailynews.com/new...

      http://www.inquisitr.com/18064...

      http://www.deseretnews.com/top...

      http://www.cbsnews.com/news/50...

      --
      Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
    2. Re:Guns actually protect people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      > Also murders in England and Whales are only counted after arrest, conviction, retrial and been jailed.

      That is because the conviction could ultimately be manslaughter or murder. The figures most colloquially called the murder statistics in the UK are actually the homicide statistics. Most countries actually release homicide statistics too, but they also colloquially get called murder statistics.

    3. Re:Guns actually protect people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I was the target of two car thieves back in 2012. They were in the process of forcing themselves into my vehicle in a parking lot when I drew my (legal) firearm on them. I didn't fire a shot, they cut and run as soon as they saw me draw. I wound up giving testimony against them after the cops had caught them for other crimes, one of which was a murder. These two gentlemen stabbed an unarmed woman to death after forcing their way into her car. There's a non-zero chance that I would have been murdered that day if I wasn't carrying.

      I don't know where you live that you're completely safe from being victimized, but please don't take away my right to legally and responsibly defend myself from great bodily harm. Maybe if I could be more like you, I could afford a $1,500,000 house in a really nice neighborhood where the police keep the violent undesirable people away.

    4. Re:Guns actually protect people by cyber-vandal · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I live in the UK and hardly anyone owned a gun before the handgun ban. The rise in violent crime (which has been going down more recently) has nothing to do with gun ownership. Gun ownership has been regulated since the 19th century and by 1997 was very tightly regulated. The Dunblane massacre led to an even bigger crackdown but guns are still available to those who can prove that they have a good reason to own one.

      Your study assumes that the UK had a similar gun culture as the US, when in fact our culture has never been like that. There have never been any gun sections in supermarkets for example and the idea of someone openly carrying an assault rifle would be incredible (and worrying) to people here.

      The availability of cheap alcohol from supermarkets and the rise in people getting drunk before going out due to high prices in bars and clubs is probably a more likely factor in the rise in violent crime than people finding it a bit harder to get guns they never really wanted in the first place. This is probably a better read than that study if you want to inform yourself about the UK's history with guns.

  2. legal sale? by aepervius · · Score: 4, Interesting
    "So in effect, they are suppressing behaviour that is completely legal"

    Porn magazine and otehr sex toy paraphenelia are legal to sell to 18+, roughly like guns, and yet some outfits refuse to stock them. As a private entity it is up to facebook to see what it wants to put up with. As such you can certainly see why a corp would avoid any non licensed sale, as it could bring them heat.

    secodnely, the definition of violent crime differs in the US and UK. When you look at the crime which are considered violent in Uk they are not even in the stats in the US :

    US

    âoeIn the FBIâ(TM)s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crimes are defined in the UCR Program as those offenses which involve force or threat of force.â (FBI â" CUS â" Violent Crime)

    http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cj...


    * And ehre is UK : https://www.gov.uk/government/...

    Violent crime contains a wide range of offences, from minor assaults such as pushing and shoving that result in no physical harm through to serious incidents of wounding and murder. Around a half of violent incidents identified by both BCS and police statistics involve no injury to the victim

    So you get pushed and shoved, and hurt your ankle ? In UK a Violent crime. That would not even count as aggravated assault in US : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...


    Basically when you look into it, the myth that there is more violent crime in UK than US is jsut a myth, usually misused to pretend gun are needed for self defense. They are not. They are escalation tools, they lead mugger and petty crime to escalate the force they use in their crime.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
  3. Good point by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Thank you.

    That's a well-formed and unassailable argument, I won't be using that study as a reference in the future. If Slashdot had the "delete post" option I would use it.

    Your post does not address the core argument (guns good/guns bad), but that's OK.

    Let's pick this up again in the next gun control article discussion.