Senator Robert Menendez
U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, D-New Jersey (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

“[D]espite Facebook’s ban of gun sales on its platforms, users are nonetheless able to facilitate firearm transactions in private Facebook groups specifically designed to skirt Facebook’s ban on firearm sales,” the 13 senators wrote in the letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Facebook first banned the sale of firearms on the platform in 2016, then in 2018 it added proactive measures to identify sellers after pressure from lawmakers.

Senator Ed Markey
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass.(AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

“We have concerns that those measures fall short,” the lawmakers lead by Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) wrote in the letter to Facebook.

– Chris Mills Rodrigo in Democrats hit Facebook over gun sales on platform

45 COMMENTS

  1. Menendez (D)
    Markey (D)
    Murphy (D)
    Blumenthal (D)
    Harris (D)
    Warren (D)
    Reed (D)
    Hirono (D)
    Whitehouse (D)
    Murray (D)
    Durbin (D)
    Klobuchar (D)
    Booker/ Spartacus (D)

  2. They’re just not going to stop. They want complete civilian disarmament. We can all be thankful that they’re now “out of the closet” on this and showing their true colors.

    • Complete Civilian Disbarment,, good luck with that. Some people just don’t give a fck about the law and their jackbooted Nazi thugs just might be stopped by an armed civilian’s militia. We can dream

      • Possum: the goal isn’t ‘complete civilian disbarment’ (think you meant disarmament). It’s complete disarmament of law abiding citizens who are conservative.

        • How do you take their stuff to redistribute if they can resist the people’s collection agents?

        • The lefts goal is actually eradication of conservative voters. They don’t hate guns, they hate us. They know arms are a means of our defense. They are cold calculating &%$#@s not stupid. The “gun safety” movement is smoke and mirrors, a step in the process.

      • EVERY Federal Govt and UN Study and the resulting models have consistently predicted a civilian victory over Govt in event of large scale revolution. The only differences have been in time and mode.

        THIS is what the Deep State fears. THIS is why they are going after AR pattern rifles, etc. and NOT HANDGUNS. Civilian disarmament is NOT about crime or safety or anything else BUT CONTROL.

        Daddy Bloombucks is a Maoist.

        “All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns, that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party.”
        Mao Tse-tung

  3. Don’t let people discuss certain topics. We can only be safe if we censor speech. We’ll have the tech overlords enforce laws that don’t exist. -signed, the true Authoritarians

  4. Every facebook group related to firearms or reloading that I belong to has banned discussing sales period. They don’t even want you to discuss the prices of items for fear of attracting the attention of facebook algorithms. This is bullshit, these petty tyrants just don’t want the firearms community to have an online presence anywhere.

    • You talk about gunms on Facebook? man that place is crawling with more Home Security CIA FBI types then TTAG. Holy Shit Batman the Joker fckd us

      • You really think it matters? That ship sailed when they voted in the PATRIOT Act. And if you have a carry permit, well you can forget worrying about being stealthy.

  5. Personally, I think we should ban Facebook entirely! Seems it’s just a platform for all the cowardly whineasses in the country, anyway.

  6. Menendez is a pedophile and flat out criminal. Blumenthal lied about serving in Vietnam. Hirono is batsh1t crazy. We’re supposed to be listening to them?

    • What he said. I try to discourage anyone “of the gun” to have an FB account. When someone I do business with points me to their FB page, I politely decline and ask them if they are just un-American or in fact a communist.

  7. Just put Facebook on a cloud , then if anyone mentions you or use’s you’re name it will alert you , then you can open it up & see what was said.
    Otherwise just shitcan the app. Period…..

  8. Just put Facebook on a cloud , then if anyone mentions you or use’s you’re name it will alert you , then you can open it up & see what was said.
    Otherwise just shitcan the app. Period……..

  9. EZ to sell guns on fakebook?!? I belonged to a “secret” ILL group awhile back. Illinois Fun Stuff. The goofballs tried to skirt fb and disappeared. Anything marked “secret” or “private” is especially targeted. TOR or VPN won’t save you either. Neither will being heavily invested in the shock er stock market😏

    • I love the people who believe that VPN and TOR will save them. I really do. It’s so cute. These things have their uses but they’re not silver bullets.

      Private security companies showed back around 2010 that both single and multi hop VPN connections could be used to identify the user on the first try with a better than 90% success rate. TOR and JAP could users could be gotten on the first crack almost 3% of the time.

      Since then methods for detecting the user have improved greatly. And this is for white/black hats. The NSA was already far, far better at identifying users.

      The NSA is known to have, by 2012, essentially defeated TOR and VPNs, which isn’t terribly surprising since they’re both mid-90’s tech at their core and the fact that the harder one to defeat, TOR, was developed by the US Navy in their Naval Research Labs in conjunction with DARPA.

      Across the pond in France it’s been shown that many TOR connections themselves give away IP addresses. Like 35% or more depending on which protocol is being used.

      The bottom line is that they work for most low to mid level stuff but if a government agency takes an interest in you, you’re fucked. The sad thing is that many of the people running these things are doing it because government. Just a basic read up on the FOXACID and QUANTUM projects, now outed half a decade ago, should make this pretty clear.

      When it comes to electronics it’s best to assume that everything you say and do can be found because, generally, it can if the people looking care enough to do the work.

      The best super-simple analogy I’ve come up with for this is as follows: It doesn’t matter if you tint the windows on your car if I control all the roads. You still have to leave, get where you’re going and return home. If I watch you do those things then I know who you are and what you’re up to. Lucky you that for the most part no one cares what you do or who you are but the idea you could use these technologies and hide from a government that was inclined to find you is a joke.

    • When ONLY in the hands of a communist, socialist or other oppressive government,
      “Guns are tools of oppression.”

      There’s another fix.

    • Guns are tools. You got that much right. They can be used to fight oppression. Unless the government hell bent on oppressive ideology first disarms the population under guise of fighting crime and promoting safety.

  10. The right: “Why don’t social media platforms play fair? Left-wing bias is not ok!”

    The left: “Why don’t social media platforms do more to help us crush our enemies?”

    The left understands the nature of political conflict a lot more clearly than the right. It’s no longer a good-faith argument about choosing the best policy. We have so little in common with each other that politics has devolved purely into “who-whom.” (The Virginia bill to outlaw the NRA range in Fairfax illustrates this with helpful clarity.)

  11. The irony? If they really want to cut down on criminal use of firearms, they should ENCOURAGE the use of places like Facebook for firearm transactions. People who post their illegal activities (felons in possession of a firearm, wanting to buy, etc) should be encouraged to do so. It is a microscopic digital bread-crumb trail of information that police would love to use to track down felons and other criminals/partners.

    Instead, all these politicians have done is push these activities out of the digital flood-light, and back into the invisible dark shadows of the underworld.

  12. As a provider of content FB has no business to be anti or pro anything. So unless it is explicitly illegal they have no business being sensors. Like all adults (as our Founders assumed people to be) if you do not like or agree with something do not look at or read it. And that goes for either side here, Left idiots and Right also.

  13. I thought was a felon.wasnt he convicted seveveral years ago for taking bribes from a doctor

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