You Will Shoot Your Eye Out

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- United Parcel Service has issued new rules for shipping firearms and firearm parts, but the announcement comes a week after UPS canceled the accounts of gun retailers who may have violated the rules that weren’t yet made public or even in effect.

In a story published July 1, we revealed that UPS was terminating the accounts of gun dealers, and that any packages currently in the UPS system could be “seized and destroyed.”

In a letter sent to one Florida gun dealer, Ghost Firearms, UPS said they were terminating the account because they “may be violating” laws concerning homemade firearm parts.

“We write to inform you that UPS has learned that your company may be violating applicable laws concerning the shipment of “ghost guns” to unauthorized locations,” the letter states. “In light of our concern, UPS has determined that it will cancel your account, effective immediately.”

In a follow-up story published July 5, we revealed that five Democratic Senators recently sent ominous letters to UPS and 27 other carriers, blaming them for escalating violent crime rates.

“We are concerned that lax shipping security measures are contributing to the epidemic of gun violence in this country by allowing criminals to use stolen firearms to commit crimes,” the letters each state.

They were signed by Senators Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Cory A. Booker (D-N.J.), Christopher S. Murphy (D-Conn.), and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

In their letters, the Senators peppered the shippers with 20 questions and document requests. They were sent May 19 to UPS, FedEx, the U.S. Postal Service, and trucking and rail carriers located in the United States and Canada.

UPS media relations personnel did not respond to calls or emails seeking comment for either story.

Now, UPS has quietly updated its rules for shipping firearms on its website.

Now, they require a serial number on any frame or receiver, as required by a federal rule that hasn’t yet taken effect.

Any item that meets the definition of a firearm (including firearm mufflers or silencers) or a “frame” or “receiver” under federal law (including any partially complete, disassembled, or nonfunctional frame or receiver as defined by 27 CFR § 478.12) must be identified and bear a serial number in satisfaction of the requirements for identifying such items under federal law, including 27 CFR § 478.92 and/or 27 CFR § 479.102, regardless of whether any such items are otherwise exempt from or not subject to identification requirements under applicable law.  This prohibition applies even before the effective date of 27 CFR § 478.12.

UPS’ previous rules contained no serial number requirements.

Takeaways

Over the past two weeks, UPS’ messaging has been a hot mess.

They threatened dealers’ livelihoods. They seized and destroyed property – all with no advance notice – and when they were caught and their actions became public, they failed to address their mistakes.

In other words, they punished gun dealers for violating secret UPS rules that weren’t even public – all because they got a scary letter from five anti-gun politicians.

As a private business, UPS is free to enact whatever shipping rules they want, but we are free to choose a carrier that’s not so schizophrenic.

This story is presented by the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project and wouldn’t be possible without you. Please click here to make a tax-deductible donation to support more pro-gun stories like this.

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About Lee Williams

Lee Williams, who is also known as “The Gun Writer,” is the chief editor of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project. Until recently, he was also an editor for a daily newspaper in Florida. Before becoming an editor, Lee was an investigative reporter at newspapers in three states and a U.S. Territory. Before becoming a journalist, he worked as a police officer. Before becoming a cop, Lee served in the Army. He’s earned more than a dozen national journalism awards as a reporter, and three medals of valor as a cop. Lee is an avid tactical shooter.

Anthony Del Rosario of Nevada examines a shotgun at The Gun Store November 14, 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

As missed warning signs pile up in investigations of mass killings, New York state is rolling out a novel strategy to screen applicants for gun permits. People seeking to carry concealed handguns will be required to hand over lists of their social media accounts for a review of their “character and conduct.”

It’s an approach applauded by many Democrats and national gun control advocacy groups, but some experts have raised questions about how the law will be enforced and address free speech concerns.

Some of the local officials who will be tasked with reviewing the social media content also are asking whether they’ll have the resources and, in some cases, whether the law is even constitutional.

Sheriffs haven’t received additional money or staffing to handle a new application process, said Peter Kehoe, the executive director of the New York Sheriffs’ Association. The law, he asserted, infringes on Second Amendment rights, and while applicants must list their social media accounts, he doesn’t think local officials will necessarily look at them.

“I don’t think we would do that,” Kehoe said. “I think it would be a constitutional invasion of privacy.”

The new requirement, which takes effect in September, was included in a law passed last week that sought to preserve some limits on firearms after the Supreme Court ruled that most people have a right to carry a handgun for personal protection. It was signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, who noted shooters sometimes telegraph their intent to hurt others.

Increasingly, young men have gone online to drop hints of what’s to come before executing a mass killing, including the gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers at an Uvalde, Texas, elementary school.

Under the law, applicants have to provide local officials with a list of current and former social media accounts from the previous three years. It doesn’t specify whether applicants will be required to provide access to private accounts not visible to the general public.

It will be up to local sheriff’s staff, judges or county clerks to scroll through those profiles as they check whether applicants have made statements suggesting dangerous behavior.

The law also will require applicants to undergo hours of safety training, prove they’re proficient at shooting, provide four character references and sit for in-person interviews.

The law reflects how the Supreme Court ruling has shifted responsibility to states for vetting those who carry firearms in public, said Tanya Schardt, senior counsel and director of state and federal policy for gun control advocacy organization Brady.

Her group said it was not aware of any other states requiring gun permit applicants to submit social media profiles.

The new approach, however, comes amid growing debate over the policing of social media posts and a legacy of unwarranted surveillance of Black and brown communities.

“The question should be: Can we do this in an anti-racist way that does not create another set of violence, which is the state violence that happens through surveillance?” said University of Pennsylvania social policy, communications and medicine professor Desmond Upton Patton, who also founded SAFElab, a research initiative studying violence involving youths of color.

Meanwhile, gun rights advocates are blasting the law.

“You’re also going to have to tell them your social media accounts because New York wants to thoroughly investigate you to figure out if you’re some of those dangerous law-abiding citizens who are taking the country by storm and causing crime to skyrocket,” Jared Yanis, host of the YouTube channel Guns & Gadgets, says in a widely viewed video on the new law. “What have we come to?”

Hochul, who also has tasked state police with routing out extremism online, didn’t immediately respond to a list of questions about the social media requirement, including how the state will address free speech and privacy concerns.

“Often the sticking point is: How do we go about enforcing this?” Metro State University criminal justice professor James Densley, cofounder of research initiative The Violence Project, said. “I think it starts to open up a bit of a can of worms, because no one quite knows the best way to go about doing it.”

It can be tricky, he said, to decode social media posts by younger people, who could simply be expressing themselves by posting a music video.

“Where this will get tricky is to what extent this is expression and to what extent is this evidence of wrongdoing?” Densley said.

Spokespeople for the social media platforms Facebook, Twitter, 4Chan and Parler didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

New York should instead consider giving the job to a trained group tasked with figuring out how to best reach out to people online who are showing signs of radicalization or trauma and may need help, Patton said.

“There’s a lot of nuance and contextual issues. We speak differently; how we communicate, that could be misunderstood,” Patton said. “I’m concerned we don’t have the right people or the right tools in place to do this in a way that’s useful in actually preventing violence.”

Adam Scott Wandt, a public policy professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said that he supports gun control, but that he worries the New York law could set a precedent for mandatory disclosure of social media activity for people seeking other types of licenses from the state.

New York’s law is rushed and vague, said Wandt, who teaches law enforcement personnel how to conduct searches on people through social media.

“I think that what we might have done as a state here in New York is, we may have confirmed their worst fears — that a slippery slope will be created that will slowly reduce their rights to carry guns and allow a bureaucracy to decide, based on unclear criteria, who can have a gun and who cannot,” Wandt said. “Which is exactly what the Supreme Court was trying to avoid.”