Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Expands Online Commerce Role, But Says "No Guns, Please"
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.
The social network, with 1.6 billion monthly visitors, had become one of the worldâ(TM)s largest marketplaces for guns
No, I do not need the government's permission. And the law supports my position here. Besides, it's a right, not a privilege.
What's going on with the comments here? It's like the Brady Campaign sent out an action alert and all their drones showed up to post.
There are many gun sales in the Facebook parking lot in Menlo Park. Most days there are several pickup trucks filled with AK-47s. They just don't care.
I'm torn between "missing sarcasm tag" and "citation please." Leaning to the former.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_the_United_States_by_state
A list, state by state, showing the laws as far as guns go. Permit to purchase, registration, carry permits, and more--including background checks requirements for private sales. Most of the states on that list require absolutely no background check, license, transfer of ownership, paperwork, etc as far as face to face sales go. This is a state matter and 100% legal. What facebook is doing--that is, blackballing discussion of it across the board--is morally wrong, seeing as face to face sales are legal in most states. If they banned discussion by state residency, it would be justifiable. What they're doing, however, is publicly taking a stance *as a company* against gun owners, gun buyers, and guns in general. And while yes, it is their site and they make the rules, that doesn't make it any less of a shitty thing to do.
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
Another reason of many why I gave up on facebook.
"There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and
It's a "problem" why? Because you say it is? Look, you may fall for the propaganda. I really don't care if you do. I will however correct this type of propaganda when I see it.
Fact: The areas with the highest number of legal guns per capita in the US have the lowest crime rate.
- Criminals don't follow the law, and there are more criminals than cops. Always will be, so don't slide down that slippery slope.
I love how a well thought out post that is backed by actual research is criticized by a bunch of anonymous cowards....
Oh, wait until the election.
And they still cant handle 'foreign' non ASCII characters in the summary...
Another billionaire with 24/7 armed security doesn't understand why anyone would want a gun.
In principle, I agree, guns shouldn't be sold to dangerous individuals. But that's far easier to say than actually do. Forcing gun sales off of Facebook, where they can be tracked and logged, means the transactions will be negotiated elsewhere.
like newspaper ads, craigslist, bulletin boards, armslist.com, etc that have been around for years? As long as people meet up in person, there's nothing stopping these transactions. Otherwise, firearms need to be shipped to a Federally licensed dealer who performs the background checks.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Please at least make some make better argument for gun ownership
I don't know what would make a better argument than citing research published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, by, you know, a constitutional lawyer and a PhD in criminology.
But I'm not averse to learning.
What would you recommend as a better argument? How would you go about it?
An informed argument is so refreshing. Bravo!
Firstly, you are citing news articles and not published research, and others might point out the gap in credibility between our arguments. For my part, I know that your sources reflect publish papers so it's all good.
The difference between our arguments is this: I claim that looking at *gun* deaths is misleading, because the vast majority of gun incidents resolve in favor of the gun owner and do not lead to death.
The statistic of measure should be the overall fatality rate (death from all causes), not the "death by gun" rate.
So for a counter example, note that the rate of "death by anaphalactic shock" shoots way up in areas that have lots of vaccinations.
Should we thus avoid vaccinations?
All of your sources are referring to gun deaths. We could ban guns in an attempt to reduce these specific types of death, but if it is at the expense of the overall fatality rate, it's not the prudent move.
One of the FB gun buying/selling/trading groups that is for my local city is now known as the "awesome pony trading group". And posts are all edited to reference equines, saddles (holsters) and tack (ammo)
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
The gun thing annoys me, but hey, Facebook is a private company. What I really want to be banned off of Facebook is any mention of any entity with any connection, no matter how tenuous, with anyone associated with the Kardumassians.
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
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cj...
* And ehre is UK : https://www.gov.uk/government/...
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
The number of guns legally sold person-to-person is miniscule. The vast majority of homicides are in inner cities like parts of Chicago, over the drug trade, where they are purchased through gun mules along with the drugs.
First off, you are quite wrong. About half the guns that people have (of the people that I know) were obtained through legal face to face transactions. Mostly as gifts and hand me downs, but also simply trading and buying / selling because of changing interests. There are some places and some demographics where there is few FTF transactions going on... the increasing demographic of women buying guns is mostly from retail outlets.
Face to face transactions are illegal in Illinois. Likewise, owners are required to have a valid FOID card beforehand (an additional above and beyond check over what most other states do.
It doesn't make a lick of difference.
And it STILL won't make a lick of difference if laws are changed one way or another, local, state, or federal. The problem is criminals, not laws that only good people obey.
It's a right to own a gun, not to be a gun dealer. There is also no constitutional right that buying a gun has to be easy. Subtle but important difference.
Liberals decry restrictions the GOP dreams up on abortions designed to make it hard or impossible to use one's Constitutional right to Choice but applaud any restrictions the Democrats dream up on doing the same to the Constitutional right to gun ownership. The inverse is true for Conservatives. What is even more amusing is that each side recognizes the Supreme Courts right to interpret the constitution when it has ruled for them and slam it when is has ruled against them. Only the Supreme Court has the Constitutional right to judge what is a "14th amendment protection" and what "well organized militia" means on the 2nd
Did he use Facebook to sell guns to the Mexican drug cartels?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
the gun sellers and buyers. They have a huge database of gun owners as well as those iterated in buying waiting to be targeted. Advertisers as well as law enforcement might pay good money for that information.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The militia clause doesn't matter, check fucking Heller.
Stop using Facebook.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Before the Revolutionary war, Americans were well armed and quite good with guns. This is why the British army worked so hard to locate and confiscate the guns - they failed. The American colonials not only owned guns and were good shots, but they were quite good at designing and making guns. Some of the earliest automated manufacturing in the US was by colonials making guns for the Revolutionary war. These guns were in many ways superior to the British army guns of the day because the American rifles, having been made in an automated fashion, were made with sufficient precision that their parts were interchangeable; A damaged American rifle could be quickly repaired in the field by replacing the damaged part with a standard part. A British rifle of the time, one damaged, had to go back to the gunsmith for repair as each one was just slightly different. This is no slight against the British, it was just an interesting moment in history where the absolute best from before a paradigm shift (the finely-crafted hand-built British rifle) ran up against an early model of the new (the mas-produced American model) and the benefits of the new were sufficient to overcome any areas where it was lacking.
As for Americans being unfamiliar with war before the Revolution, you are similarly thoroughly ignorant. Many American colonists, being British citizens, served in the British military in the century before the revolution. There was plenty of fighting in North America between British forces, French forces, American Indians, etc. Where do you think "General George Washington" came from???? The US Congress made him a General, but before 1776, he had been an officer in the British army.
It's a right to own a gun, not an obligation to be a gun dealer. There is also no constitutional right that buying a gun has to be easy. Subtle but important difference.
Fixed that for you.
You are right of course.
Amazing that the kooks have come to the point that they believe that deciding not to sell guns via your website is depriving them of their rights.
Gotta go now - I'm having a yard sale, and the town where I live in Texas mandated that I sell firearms at my yard sale.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
In principle, I agree, guns shouldn't be sold to dangerous individuals. But that's far easier to say than actually do. Forcing gun sales off of Facebook, where they can be tracked and logged, means the transactions will be negotiated elsewhere.
So you are in favor of forcing Facebook to facilitate firearm sales when they don't want to?
Seriously, have the gun nuts become so unhinged that they demand that others be forced to sell guns?
And in a world where the kooks find background checks for criminal activity an infringement on their rights, its hilarious to use Facebook as a honeypot.
Jeezzuz Kryst on a hoverboard, that's crazy talk!
You want to sell firearms without background checks, set up your own website instead of demanding that everyone else facilitate the sales.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
There is also no constitutional right that buying a gun has to be easy.
What part of "shall not be infringed" did you find confusing? The authors meant the 2A to apply to citizens, the supremes have ruled that it does, NY wasn't allowed to ban saturday night specials because that makes guns expensive for poor people and you can't force people to buy a safe for the same reason.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They want to kill us!
Easy access to firearms actually protects people.
There's a WHOLE lotta correlation there, and very little causation there.
I don't respond to AC's.
The right to bear arms shall not be infringed.
The right to purchase arms shall not be infringed.
Spot the difference?
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.
The right not being infringed pretty much does say that impediments to enjoying the right are, in fact, unconstitutional. How else do you get the gun to "keep and bear" if you don't buy it. The Founding Fathers understood that most people would not be making their own guns.
People who are willing to sell to a criminal are already not doing background checks and will continue not doing background checks. What on earth makes you think that this background check regulation will actually be followed by those knowingly selling to criminals? Law enforcement already knows that criminals almost exclusively buy from other criminals. Hint: Obama and his Attorney General are not law enforcement. Neither are Mayors Bloomberg and De Blasio nor are there politically motivated Police Chiefs (they are politicians pretending to be law enforcement).
You are correct that most gun owners intellectually agree that Facebook, as a private company, has the right to not allow certain activities. However, we also understand that the government actually has laws that do not allow companies to discriminate like this and we understand that if Facebook were to issue a policy stating that it would not allow its tools to be used to transfer payments or advertise for sale something like gay-themed wedding cakes, then not only would most hailing Facebook's gun decision be crying foul but most likely various government agencies would be opening investigations.
In what way are guns and gay-themed wedding cakes in any way the same thing, you ask? They are both legal for sale i n the US.
And how do you propose to keep and bear something that you cannot buy? Do you honestly believe that the Founding Fathers envisioned a world where every home would have its own gunsmithing shop? Even back then, people bought their guns from those who specialized in making guns.
Or maybe you just are not as clever as you think you are and you didn't really find a loophole that can be exploited to deny 2nd amendment rights?
I'll go with the latter.
I am in favor of forcing Facebook to take a neutral position on the facilitation of the legal sale of any product and for forcing them to treat the legal sales of any product the same way they treat the legal sale of any other product. At least until such time that the government completely gets out of the business of regulating how individuals and private companies interact with each other. IOW, if the government is going to force a business to sell to Persons X, Y and Z if the business is selling to Persons A and B then it should enforce that evenly and across the board.
Either the government has no business requiring a professional artist to decorate a cake for a wedding the professional artist disapproves of or the government must require that Facebook facilitate the legal sale of firearms in the same way with the exact same set of rules that Facebook facilitates the legal sale of purple yarn.
As one of those so-called "gun nuts", I will say that jafiwam is probably fairly close to accurate with the numbers and you are both correct that more laws won't stop criminals from being criminals, Hell, even the most die-hard liberals shout this every time the death penalty becomes a topic of discussion.
Look at this statistic that I looked at the other day using US government numbers. The US has about 350 million guns in civilian hands and about 250 million registered motor vehicles for highway use (motorcycles, cars, light trucks, heavy trucks). Around 32,000 people are killed by those guns each year (murder, accident, self-defense, suicide, etc) and around 32,000 people are killed each year by those motor vehicles each year. That means that a motor vehicle in the US is approximately 33% more likely to kill a person than is a gun in the US. Why exactly are we always arguing that guns are a major problem and need to be eliminated?
What part of "well regulated militia" do you find confusing?
What part of "well regulated militia" do you find confusing?
I find it confusing why so many people like yourself insist on utilizing the most common modern connotation of "regulated" instead of the one which dominated at the time, and then expect other people to follow along like they are also a bunch of dumbfucks. Regulated meant "in good working order", it did not mean "subject to rules and regulations". If you read the papers written by the authors and proponents of the 2A, they make it abundantly clear that the purpose of the amendment was indeed to secure the right of popular revolt against the government, and further that the people's right to self-defense should not be interfered with by denying them arms. But clearly, you haven't done that either, which is why you're claiming that there's some confusion about the intent of the 2A. There is not. Only you and people like you who are anti-gun because you think you can solve problems by making people weaker claim that there is any debate on the subject. There is not. We know what they intended, and that was to avoid the need for and indeed the presence of a standing military, and to permit the people the tools needed to defend their country from enemies foreign and domestic.
It's not at all confusing to me, because I've read the relevant materials. It's not at all confusing to me why you find it so confusing, either. You're a disingenuous coward.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And many people try to shoehorn an article of the Constitution written before the advent of handguns and automatic weapons to the present time. So?
But if you insist, at that time the writers of the Constitution absolutely believed that INDIVIDUAL STATES can and must regulate the militias to protect against foreign invasions and tyrannical acts of the federal government. So in effect arms are a means of defense against an organized invasion.
The Constitution absolutely does NOT protect the use of guns for individual defense or for hunting. There's a Supreme Court decision that bans short-barreled shotguns because they are not a legitimate weapon of war, for example ( https://supreme.justia.com/cas... ).
The modern interpretation that gun-fondlers can use guns without any oversight whatsoever is a work of an activist judge, nothing more. So yes, if you want to play with guns - go to military.
They are trying. To the point that people are threatened with expulsion from state run universities for committing such aggressive acts as asking "So, where you from?" (yes, they call it microaggression)
"how much does that gun protect your house when you're not in it?" What an asinine question? The only possible reason to even ask that question is if you are the type that believes guns are the inherent evil and do the killing all by themselves.
Maybe, if you live in such a high crime area and want to own a gun and cannot keep the gun on you or closer to you when you leave the house, then you buy a safe and bolt it to the wall or the floor or not at all because most criminals are smart enough to realize that breaking into a high-quality gun safe is not worth the effort.
On what grounds would you confiscate private property? Any sensible gun law would be less restrictive than what we have today.
Getting really sick of yet another post from an individual with fewer freedoms than I have complaining about my freedoms. If I wanted to read posts about people being envious of freedom, I'd read blogs written by death row inmates.
And many people try to shoehorn an article of the Constitution written before the advent of handguns and automatic weapons to the present time.
It was normal for private citizens to own cannon at the time, and there were no laws preventing the owning of breech-loading firearms, or restricting their ownership to particular classes.
The Constitution absolutely does NOT protect the use of guns for individual defense or for hunting.
These uses are actually mentioned several times as reasons why American citizens should be able to own guns, by several of those involved with the passage of the 2A. The big problem is that they even mentioned a militia, because they wanted to provide some kind of rationale. You are forgetting (deliberately) that the bill of rights is not meant to be an exhaustive list. We have the right to self-defense because all people have that right; it is a basic tenet of common law.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
These uses are actually mentioned several times as reasons why American citizens should be able to own guns, by several of those involved with the passage of the 2A.
Actually, no. The use of guns for personal protection was not really mentioned anywhere. The main reason is the protection of freedom. Might I quote George Washington?
It may be laid down, as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every citizen who enjoys the protection of a free government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defence of it, and consequently that the Citizens of America (with a few legal and official exceptions) from 18 to 50 Years of Age should be borne on the Militia Rolls, provided with uniform Arms, and so far accustomed to the use of them, that the Total strength of the Country might be called forth at Short Notice on any very interesting Emergency.
Or perhaps:
A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent on others for essential, particularly for military, supplies.
So yes, let me reiterate: "Want to play with guns - join the military".
People who are willing to sell to a criminal are already not doing background checks and will continue not doing background checks. What on earth makes you think that this background check regulation will actually be followed by those knowingly selling to criminals?
Of course there will be people geting around laws. But because a person gets away with something that's against the law does not mean that there shouldn't be any laws. Your idea that we shouldn't have background checks at all because criminals will try to find ways around them is not quite sane. You an anarchist or something?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I am in favor of forcing Facebook to take a neutral position on the facilitation of the legal sale of any product and for forcing them to treat the legal sales of any product the same way they treat the legal sale of any other product.
I'm in favor of allowing Facebook of doing what they damn well please. And since not selling firearms is not illegal, they don't have to.
You seem to believe in freedom of guns, but no other freedoms. Good day sir,
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
So yes, let me reiterate: "Want to play with guns - join the military".
So what you're saying is that you support the strong centralized standing military that the second amendment was specifically about avoiding because it is harmful to freedom? Got it. Now I know precisely what kind of scum you are: the kind which believes that people should be beholden to their government, rather than the other way around.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So what you're saying is that you support the strong centralized standing military that the second amendment was specifically about avoiding because it is harmful to freedom?
Actually, I'm thinking that the Constitution writers had the right idea in general. However, their approach is woefully outdated.
Now I know precisely what kind of scum you are: the kind which believes that people should be beholden to their government, rather than the other way around.
Now I know precisely what kind of scum you are: the kind which believes that people should be beholden to their whims reinforced by guns, rather than to laws agreed upon by the people. You are probably a couple of hours away from making another mass shooting in a primary school. Right?
I am in a Firearms for Sale group in Australia.
All firearms sales must go through a licenced firearms dealer here, with Facebook just being a place to advertise.
It is not Facebook's fault. It is that the majority of Americans are trigger happy gun huggers who do not wan the 2nd Amendment repealed or enforced. Never understood how any Dick and Jane with a dozen rifles constitute a well-regulated militia.
can you liberal whackjobs and nutjobs that are so afraid that you piss your pants at the very mention of a gun ever discuss guns in a rational manner without making the claim that a .22 is a 9mm is a rocket launcher is an atomic bomb?