Information on on-line gun auctions and the people who run them.
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Banned From eBay, Auctions
For Guns Find Other Outlets
ATLANTA -- Steve Urvan's Web site looks pretty much like other online auctions, but it features some items you won't find on eBay -- like a Glock .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol, fetching bids of up to $530, and a 12-gauge Mossberg "Persuader" pump-action shotgun starting at $234.
GunBroker.com (www.gunbroker.com) is a busy online auction house well outside the mainstream of e-commerce. After a little more than a year in business, this utopia for wired gun buffs just celebrated its first million-dollar month, measured in terms of auction sales. "It has really taken off," brags Mr. Urvan, the site's 34-year-old CEO, who runs the whole thing from his house atop a hill in a leafy Atlanta neighborhood.
Selling a gun on the Internet is legal, as long as the transaction adheres to state and federal firearms laws. But while Silicon Valley has churned out start-ups devoted to everything from pet food to workout clothes, it has steered clear of guns. Given the political climate a year after the Columbine shootings and fears about liability or bad publicity, that's not surprising. To many, guns are already far too readily available and anything that might boost these sales only adds to the problem.
But Mr. Urvan and his fellow online gun merchants say they shouldn't be condemned just because they're doing business online. When it comes to guns, they say, e-commerce is no different than traditional retailing.
JEFF SCHULTZ, a frequent seller on GunBroker.com, says his online transactions are scrutinized like any other firearm sale. He and a partner run GunsGoBoom.com (www.gunsgoboom.com), which retails handguns, rifles and accessories nationwide from a storefront in Newport Beach, Calif. About 75% of their sales take place online. Mr. Schultz places items -- mainly ammunition and collectible firearms -- up for bid on GunBroker.com as a way to advertise his own site.
He doesn't have any illusions about how some view his business. Combine the Internet's free-for-all reputation with the hot-button issue of guns, and people conjure images of kids or criminals procuring deadly weapons with the click of a mouse. "When I tell people I sell guns on the Internet, the reaction is, 'Oh my God, what are you doing?' " Mr. Schultz says.
It was that kind of reaction that helped launch GunBroker.com in the first place. Up until early last year, eBay hosted auctions of guns right alongside baseball cards and doll houses. Then, on Feb. 19, 1999, eBay announced a ban on firearms. In a statement, the company said it had decided that "the Internet is not an appropriate venue for this kind of merchandise." Amazon.com has a similar policy for its auctions, as does Yahoo.
EBay's move riled scores of customers. When Mr. Urvan heard about it, he sensed a golden opportunity. An Ohio native and Georgia Tech computer-science dropout, he had worked as an executive for a modem manufacturer but lost his job when the company hit hard times. He wanted to start an Internet business, but couldn't put together enough capital. "I tried the three F's -- you know, friends, family and fools -- but mine weren't good for a million bucks," he says.
The jilted gun enthusiasts of eBay seemed a ready-made market. "These people were going to land somewhere," says Mr. Urvan. "So we moved very quickly to get something online fast." He found a company with an auction software system, roped in some friends and set to work. Four weeks after eBay's announcement, GunBroker.com opened for business.
NOW GUNBROKER.COM lists some 8,000 items every day and ekes out a small profit. (Mr. Urvan won't say how much.) The site doesn't charge commissions like eBay. Much of the revenue comes from paid advertising aimed at the site's male, outdoorsy demographic. Mr. Urvan has outsourced the ad sales to an agency that brings him major advertisers, including Disney's GO.com portal.
To buy a gun online, you place a bid as you would on any other online auction. But from there on, things are much different. Under federal gun laws, sellers can only ship firearms across state lines to a dealer with a federal firearm license, or FFL. A buyer must find a local FFL dealer willing to accept the gun on his behalf, then send the seller a signed copy of the dealer's license along with the payment. The local FFL runs a background check on the purchaser in accordance with that state's law. If the buyer passes muster, the local FFL accepts the gun from the seller and gives it to the buyer, typically charging anywhere from $5 to $35 for the transfer.
GunBroker.com itself doesn't check out the buyer or inspect the licenses. But Mr. Urvan is confident no gun merchant openly doing business on the Web would risk a felony conviction by skirting the regulations. David Nunn, a Greenville, Texas, police officer who sells guns as a sideline, says a few bidders turned out to be "kids trying to buy a gun because someone told them how easy it is over the Internet." The ploy fell apart as soon as he inquired about the transfer dealer, Mr. Nunn says.
With that process in place, Mr. Urvan can't understand why anyone would object to online gun sales. "First, what we're doing is legal. Second, we're not doing anything that makes it easier for children or criminals to get guns," he says.
Politically, Mr. Urvan says he has had a libertarian streak since childhood. But he had never fired a gun until he moved to Georgia, where he was introduced to target shooting. He took it up as a hobby, but says it's been quite a while since he has gone shooting. "I don't have time for it anymore," he says.
[This message has been edited by Mr. Pub (edited April 24, 2000).]
_____________________________________________
Banned From eBay, Auctions
For Guns Find Other Outlets
ATLANTA -- Steve Urvan's Web site looks pretty much like other online auctions, but it features some items you won't find on eBay -- like a Glock .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol, fetching bids of up to $530, and a 12-gauge Mossberg "Persuader" pump-action shotgun starting at $234.
GunBroker.com (www.gunbroker.com) is a busy online auction house well outside the mainstream of e-commerce. After a little more than a year in business, this utopia for wired gun buffs just celebrated its first million-dollar month, measured in terms of auction sales. "It has really taken off," brags Mr. Urvan, the site's 34-year-old CEO, who runs the whole thing from his house atop a hill in a leafy Atlanta neighborhood.
Selling a gun on the Internet is legal, as long as the transaction adheres to state and federal firearms laws. But while Silicon Valley has churned out start-ups devoted to everything from pet food to workout clothes, it has steered clear of guns. Given the political climate a year after the Columbine shootings and fears about liability or bad publicity, that's not surprising. To many, guns are already far too readily available and anything that might boost these sales only adds to the problem.
But Mr. Urvan and his fellow online gun merchants say they shouldn't be condemned just because they're doing business online. When it comes to guns, they say, e-commerce is no different than traditional retailing.
JEFF SCHULTZ, a frequent seller on GunBroker.com, says his online transactions are scrutinized like any other firearm sale. He and a partner run GunsGoBoom.com (www.gunsgoboom.com), which retails handguns, rifles and accessories nationwide from a storefront in Newport Beach, Calif. About 75% of their sales take place online. Mr. Schultz places items -- mainly ammunition and collectible firearms -- up for bid on GunBroker.com as a way to advertise his own site.
He doesn't have any illusions about how some view his business. Combine the Internet's free-for-all reputation with the hot-button issue of guns, and people conjure images of kids or criminals procuring deadly weapons with the click of a mouse. "When I tell people I sell guns on the Internet, the reaction is, 'Oh my God, what are you doing?' " Mr. Schultz says.
It was that kind of reaction that helped launch GunBroker.com in the first place. Up until early last year, eBay hosted auctions of guns right alongside baseball cards and doll houses. Then, on Feb. 19, 1999, eBay announced a ban on firearms. In a statement, the company said it had decided that "the Internet is not an appropriate venue for this kind of merchandise." Amazon.com has a similar policy for its auctions, as does Yahoo.
EBay's move riled scores of customers. When Mr. Urvan heard about it, he sensed a golden opportunity. An Ohio native and Georgia Tech computer-science dropout, he had worked as an executive for a modem manufacturer but lost his job when the company hit hard times. He wanted to start an Internet business, but couldn't put together enough capital. "I tried the three F's -- you know, friends, family and fools -- but mine weren't good for a million bucks," he says.
The jilted gun enthusiasts of eBay seemed a ready-made market. "These people were going to land somewhere," says Mr. Urvan. "So we moved very quickly to get something online fast." He found a company with an auction software system, roped in some friends and set to work. Four weeks after eBay's announcement, GunBroker.com opened for business.
NOW GUNBROKER.COM lists some 8,000 items every day and ekes out a small profit. (Mr. Urvan won't say how much.) The site doesn't charge commissions like eBay. Much of the revenue comes from paid advertising aimed at the site's male, outdoorsy demographic. Mr. Urvan has outsourced the ad sales to an agency that brings him major advertisers, including Disney's GO.com portal.
To buy a gun online, you place a bid as you would on any other online auction. But from there on, things are much different. Under federal gun laws, sellers can only ship firearms across state lines to a dealer with a federal firearm license, or FFL. A buyer must find a local FFL dealer willing to accept the gun on his behalf, then send the seller a signed copy of the dealer's license along with the payment. The local FFL runs a background check on the purchaser in accordance with that state's law. If the buyer passes muster, the local FFL accepts the gun from the seller and gives it to the buyer, typically charging anywhere from $5 to $35 for the transfer.
GunBroker.com itself doesn't check out the buyer or inspect the licenses. But Mr. Urvan is confident no gun merchant openly doing business on the Web would risk a felony conviction by skirting the regulations. David Nunn, a Greenville, Texas, police officer who sells guns as a sideline, says a few bidders turned out to be "kids trying to buy a gun because someone told them how easy it is over the Internet." The ploy fell apart as soon as he inquired about the transfer dealer, Mr. Nunn says.
With that process in place, Mr. Urvan can't understand why anyone would object to online gun sales. "First, what we're doing is legal. Second, we're not doing anything that makes it easier for children or criminals to get guns," he says.
Politically, Mr. Urvan says he has had a libertarian streak since childhood. But he had never fired a gun until he moved to Georgia, where he was introduced to target shooting. He took it up as a hobby, but says it's been quite a while since he has gone shooting. "I don't have time for it anymore," he says.
[This message has been edited by Mr. Pub (edited April 24, 2000).]