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Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Paypal's Hoplophobia [Guns]

I heard recently that PayPal was "anti-gun". I went to their site and checked out their policies, and sure enough, they have absorbed eBay's over-broad rules:

FIREARM PARTS AND ACCESSORIES
You may not use PayPal to purchase or sell any firearm receivers or frames, components and parts of receivers and frames, or "cut" or "80%" receivers. PayPal also does not permit assault weapon-related parts and accessories, firearm silencers, and kits designed to convert a firearm to have automatic firing capability. This includes the sale of any parts or accessories prohibited for sale by the National Firearms Act or other federal or state law, including items related to short-barreled shotguns or short-barreled rifles, fully automatic weapons, large-capacity magazines, multi-burst trigger activators and camouflaging firearm containers.

For more information about the National Firearms Act (NFA) and its requirements, please refer to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms website.

AMMUNITION
You may not use PayPal to buy or sell high-capacity magazines (those which hold more than 10 rounds), ammunition with propellant (e.g., gunpowder), or blank ammunition. The term "ammunition" means ammunition or cartridge cases, primers, bullets, or propellant powder designed for use in any firearm.
The reason for the tight rules is obvious: PayPal and eBay are trying to stay in the good graces of the liberal state such as Illinois and California, which have very tight rules about "assault weapons" (ugly guns) and "high capacity magazines" (>10 rounds).

There are stories floating around on the web about people whose PayPal accounts were summarily closed after they had a transaction where certain keywords relating to firearms had appeared.

I myself have used PayPal to buy firearm related stuff on eBay and other sites; I guess I will have to be more careful.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You could try using code words or acronyms to escape their filters. Or maybe its a good time to set up a site dedicated to firearm bidding. You could call it Glock-bay.

Anonymous said...

Yes, they've been a pain in the butt for a long time. I've had obscure shipments through them several times. Could it be something prohibited? I'm not saying, and they'll never find out.

By the way, www.gunsamerica.com DOES function like a classified board, and there was an auction site - but I forget what it was since I've left the states.

Anonymous said...

http://gunbroker.com/ is the auction site. It's a very good one but it's still too bad we can't use Paypal to bwy for the guns. It's just plain convenient. The other thing is Paypal's fees. If there was another compediter of Paypal that would bring the fees down to a reasonable level. What if Western Union brought thier fees down to a compeditive level?

Anonymous said...

Paypal does indeed close your account if you use it to buy or sell a firearm. I didn't fully read their long and boring terms of use when I signed up. I sold a handgun a couple months ago. The buyer was in a hurry and I wanted to sell it, so I agreed to eat the Paypal fees. Unfortunately he put in the name of the gun in the transaction description and yesterday, bingo, my account was closed. I told them I didn't know, I'd be good and never do it again. Their response was tough - your account is closed and there's no appeal. They're sitting on $2500 of my money right now. I'm hoping that someday I get it back. Paypal sucks. Don't use them.

Anonymous said...

$2500? wow, thats big money for me man..
I hope they'll reopen your account.