May 15, 2020
By Mark Chesnut
In their ongoing battle against guns and legal gun ownership, anti-gun companies Google and Apple have disabled the functionality of the Gunbroker.com app on their platforms, denying users the ability to shop and make purchases via those apps.
“ Bid and buy functionality for the mobile app has been disabled,” Gunbroker said in a recent statement. “All bids and purchases must be done on the responsive website. If you try to bid or buy you will see this message: ‘You do not have permission to use this operation.’ This permission has been taken away from everyone and cannot be restored.”
GunBroker.com is a marketplace of gun enthusiasts dedicated to sharing an affinity for guns. Law-abiding Americans can buy guns on the site, as on other sites, following federal guidelines for background checks and other laws.
Apple forbids all sales of firearms on its apps, including those made through licensed gun dealers. According to company policy, “Apps should not include content that is offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust, or in exceptionally poor taste. Examples of such content include … depictions that encourage illegal or reckless use of weapons and dangerous objects, or facilitate the purchase of firearms."
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Google has a similar policy, stating: “We don't allow apps that facilitate the sale of explosives, firearms, ammunition or certain firearms accessories. We also don’t allow apps that provide instructions for the manufacture of explosives, firearms, ammunition, restricted firearm accessories, or other weapons.”
Obviously, these companies have little use for the Constitution, since the right to keep and bear arms, which includes buying guns, is protected by the Second Amendment. Since Gunbroker.com gun sales are made through licensed dealers following all federal laws, Google and Apple have shown themselves to not only be against illegal firearm sales, but also opposed to legal guns sales to qualified buyers who pass the federal background check.
“Due to policy changes within their companies, Apple and Google have chosen to not support our apps at this time,” the Gunbroker statement concluded. “Unfortunately, that also means we cannot provide needed updates and fixes or new access to the app. We hope you will continue to use our site via your mobile browser, which we are making more responsive to phone users.”
Freelance writer and editor Mark Chesnut is the owner/editorial director at Red Setter Communications LLC. An avid hunter, shooter and political observer, he has been covering Second Amendment issues and politics on a near-daily basis for the past 20 years.
