Giffords pressures FedEx to stop shipping “ghost gun” parts

Bearing Arms – by Tom Knighton

FedEx is used to ship both firearms and gun parts all over the country. Sometimes, some of their employees are less than trustworthy, of course, but that’s true of any operation. Most get shipped without issue and arrive where they’re supposed to go. 

Everyone ultimately wins.

Well, not everyone. It seems Giffords has a problem with this relationship, at least to some degree.

Barely a month after UPS announced it would stop shipping packages for companies that sell parts used to make untraceable firearms known as “ghost guns,” one of the nation’s most prominent gun control advocacy groups is demanding FedEx follow suit.

The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the organization associated with former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, sent a letter Tuesday asking the president and CEO of FedEx to adopt “a policy of refusing to ship dangerous firearm products that are fueling the epidemic of gun violence in America.”

“Ghost gun manufacturers are known to be irresponsible actors employing questionable business practices with deadly irreversible consequences. FedEx should not choose to do business with these companies,” said the letter, first obtained and reported by VICE News.

…

Only 11 states and Washington, D.C., have laws regulating or requiring registration of ghost guns. Last month, VICE News reported that in anticipation of the federal rule change, UPS had abruptly halted business with several companies that sell firearms parts, warning retailers that their packages could be “seized and destroyed” because they “may be violating applicable laws concerning the shipment of ‘ghost guns’ to unauthorized locations.”

UPS said in a statement that its new policy “clarifies that the company does not accept any firearms, frames or receivers, or partially complete, disassembled, or nonfunctional frames or receivers (as defined by the new federal regulation) unless those items have been identified and given a serial number in compliance with federal requirements.”

Since this story was originally published by Vice, FedEx has agreed to clarify their policy that they won’t ship such labeled goods.

Of course, anyone who thinks this is going to change a thing is deluding themselves.

As the rules regarding these receivers is set to change very soon, anyone who wishes to ship these goods will be doing so illegally in the first place. Do you really think they’re going to ship an unregulated and illegal receiver to someone else and announce to the shipping company that they’re going to ship exactly that?

No, they’re not.

All the policy does is provide USPS and FedEx a shield to avoid potential legal problems for doing so. I mean, I know of people who have gotten prescription drugs through the mail illegally despite all of those policies, so guns won’t be any different.

But let’s also look at how Giffords wrote their letter.

They pretend it’s a foregone conclusion that these companies act irresponsibly, but that’s in the eye of the beholder. Companies that produce incomplete receivers and sell them to people are acting responsibly. They believe it’s their responsibility to allow law-abiding Americans access to firearms without having to ask the government, “Mother, may I?”

That’s what a NICS check boils down to, after all. Are we deemed worthy to own a gun?

In the process, it creates a paper trail that can easily look an awful lot like a gun registry. Don’t tell me it can’t be used as such, either. We know better.

So they acted responsibly. It’s just not the way Giffords defines it, which is fine since there’s no evidence they view any kind of gun ownership as responsible.

FedEx really should have told Giffords to pound sand, but alas, that didn’t happen. With the upcoming rule change, they were likely to do what they did regardless, but it still would have been awesome to see. Unfortunately, few companies have the testicular fortitude to actually do that these days.

Bearing Arms