The photo-sharing site is home to a thriving gun market:
Users of Instagram, which has no explicit policy prohibiting the sale of firearms, can easily find a chrome-plated antique Colt, a custom MK12-inspired AR-15 tricked-out with “all best of the best parts possible,” and an HK416D .22LR rifle by simply combining terms like #rifle or #ar15 with #forsale. These are handguns, shotguns, assault rifles, and everything in between being sold in an open, pseudo-anonymous online marketplace. With no federal law banning online sales and differing, loophole-ridden state laws, many gun control advocates are concerned about the public safety consequences of this unregulated market.
Miles Klee raises his eyebrows:
That black market operators are behaving so brazenly on social media doesn’t mean they’ll always get away with it, of course. Rapper Matthew Best brought about the largest NYPD gun bust in history, with 254 firearms seized, when he bragged about his firepower on YouTube and Instagram. But what’s one bust when the web is facilitating so many other potentially illegal sales and absolving itself of such trafficking in the process?
(Screenshot from Best’s Instagram account)
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