As the U.S. continues to debate about gun control following a string of mass shootings that plagued the country at the end of 2015, Facebook has made its stance on the issue clear, banning users from coordinating "peer-to-peer" sales of firearms on both the social media network and Instagram, a spokeswoman announced Friday.
The move updates Facebook's regulated goods policy, introduced in March 2014, that banned people from selling marijuana, pharmaceuticals and illegal drugs. At the time, private firearms sellers were prohibited from posting advertisements offering state-to-state transactions and sales that didn't require a background check, since such posts indicated a willingness to evade the law. However, under the new rules, such a possibility has been nullified almost entirely.
"Over the last two years, more and more people have been using Facebook to discover products and to buy and sell things to one another," Monika Bickert, Facebook's head of product policy, said in a statement.
"We are continuing to develop, test, and launch new products to make this experience even better for people and are updating our regulated goods policies to reflect this evolution," she added, according to the New York Daily News.
There are some caveats, though, with the ban not applying to arrangements done through direct messaging and ones between a buyer and licensed gun dealers.
Gun control advocacy groups Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense had been pushing for the change for the past two years and were happy to see the fruits of their labor coming to fruition.
"We're gratified that our continuous conversation with Facebook over the course of the last two years has culminated in the company prohibiting all unlicensed gun sales arranged on its platforms," said John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, according to NBC News. "Our undercover investigations have shown that criminals are active in the online market for guns, where unlicensed sellers can offer guns with no federal background check required."
