A piece today by The Daily Beast reports on the rising trend of gun sales on Instagram, where negotiations take place right in the comments section alongside photos of firearms.
A simple search … reveals a web of semi-anonymous private and professional dealers who are advertising, negotiating, and selling firearms over Instagram.
Facebook, which owns Instagram, has no policy against it, and since there's no federal law banning the practice, people are going right ahead and slinging heat. Perhaps using the Walden filter.
Gun rights advocates are naturally upset about the newfound market.
“We are definitely concerned about the public safety implications of unregulated online gun sales, primarily the ability of sellers to skirt background checks and trafficking in firearms—both legal and illegal guns—to prohibited persons,” says Sam Hoover, a staff attorney with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
We'd like to think Mark Zuckerberg will step up and ban this practice, but after yesterday, who knows?
[H/T The Daily Beast]
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