6 Year Old Suspended For Mess Kit Utensil

In another case of Zero Tolerance=Zero Thought, Zachary Christie, a 6 year old cub scout excited to bring his mess kit fork/spoon/knife tool to school to utilize while eating his lunch was suspended for having brought a weapon. I'm guessing a teen with a board would be more of a danger than this 6 year old with his mess kit eating utensil, but many school administrators don't like to use reasoned thought these days.

Fake Drill Team Gun: Student Suspended

In yet another display of Zero Tolerance=Zero Thought school policy enforcement, Marie Morrow, a Senior High School student at Cherokee Trail High School in Aurora Colorado has been suspended for possession of a fake drill team gun. The fake gun was safe & sound in the back of her vehicle, not causing any harm to anyone, but that wasn't good enough for the thoughtless School officials who decided to suspend her for 10 days.

All Marie Morrow wanted to do was serve her country through the Douglass County Young Marines Leadership group, but all she got due to zero tolerance school policy & its bureaucratic enforcers was a 10 day school suspension. Reprehensible. The School officials who made this decision should all be fired. The School Board who created the Zero Tolerance policy should all be thrown out of office. The reason for termination listed on the pink slip should read "Nothing but mush between the ears, recommend consideration of a career flipping burgers, if that isn't above his or her level of comprehension."

Contact Cherokee Trail High School administration at 720-886-1904 as well as the corresponding Cherry Creek School District @ 303-773-1184 & let them know what you think.

Update 1: More from the NRA-ILA & the Washington Times.

TN: Kindergartner with Toy Gun in Backpack Expelled For 1 YEAR

A Kindergartner with a Toy Gun found in his backpack was expelled for a YEAR! The idiocy of zero tolerance (with zero thought) policies is insane. The leadership involved in this foolish decision should be expelled for a year, not the kindergartner!

More from Terry Frank & Worldnet Daily.

Obama Supporter Called My Son a Racist for his Support of McCain/Palin

My boys wore McCain/Palin hats to school today as it is a special "hat donation day" where the school allows hats to be worn inside the classrooms all day in exchange for a $1 donation to the school. An 8th Grade Obama supporter came up to my oldest son & told him that he was a racist for not supporting Obama. The Obama supporter told my son that his parents are going to vote for Barack Obama because he's black & it's time for our Country to have a Black president no matter who the black person is who is running.

I was dumbfounded. I've heard of this type of viewpoint in the past but it was the first such statement expressed directly to a member of my family. Talk about a racist - anyone who chooses or rejects a President based on his or her skin color is a racist, not the other way around. I'm all about promoting color & gender blindness.

If Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, or Alan Keys were running under any ticket with half a chance of beating Obama in this election I'd vote for any of them in a heartbeat. It's the person's ideas, moral character, and the direction that they want to take our country in that I vote for, not skin color or gender. I don't understand why so many people cry "racist!" whenever anyone brings up any issue related to Obama's run for the Presidency. Those are the closed minded racists, not my son.

Update 1: Looks like my son was not the only student called a racist:



Update 2: I take back what I said about Colin Powell.

Student Suspended Over Empty Shell Casing

Brady Gelsak, a 4th grade elementary student, was suspended from school 5 DAYS for brining an empty shell casing to school that was given to him as a souvenir by a Veteran on Memorial Day. Yet more Zero Tolerance=Zero Thought idiocy from some school idiotrators, I mean some out of control school administrators:

. . . After the piece of brass was confiscated, Ms. Geslak was called at work and told to come and pick up her son; he was being suspended for the next five days.

Her son was in tears when she got there. “I was totally shocked. I couldn’t believe this was happening,” she said.

“Ordinarily, I try to think ahead about things, but to me, this was something good, not bad. It was just an empty shell, not even from a real bullet. A sharpened pencil would be more dangerous than this piece of metal.” . . .

H/T to Cam on NRA News.

Update on US Soldier in Mexico Prison

For updates on the Spc. Richard Raymond Medina Torres story go to the ReleaseRichard.com website. As of now he is still in Prison & it looks like he'll know in a couple of weeks whether the remaining charges will be dropped or if he'll be sentenced to additional time in prison.

They also have set up a blog site where you can leave supportive comments.

US Soldier charged in Mexico

As I mentioned in a previous post, Mexico doesn't like civilians owning guns. As an update, Spc. Richard Raymond Medina Torres has now been officially charged:

Spc. Richard Raymond Medina Torres was charged by Mexican authorities with smuggling (punishable by five to 30 years in prison); weapons importation (punishable by three to 10 years in prison); and possession of ammunition reserved for the military (punishable by two to six years in prison), said Angel Torres, spokesman for the Mexican Attorney General.

Medina Torres was transferred to the Cereso prison around noon Wednesday.

Torres said Medina Torres' case is now in the hands of a federal judge who has 72 hours to decide whether to free him or sentence him to prison time.

The Mexico Cereso Federal Prison is a dangerous place well known to have rival gangs, drug trafficking, and hidden weapons (see here & here). All he wanted to do was park in the US & walk over to Mexico to have some breakfast, but ended up in the wrong lane:

Medina Torres has said he was trying to park in the United States and walk into Mexico to eat breakfast when he got lost and found himself at the Bridge of the Americas checkpoint on the Mexican side.

Mexican federal police stopped Medina Torres as he was trying to make a U-turn to re-enter the United States and asked him whether he was carrying weapons. The soldier said he turned over his semiautomatic AR-15 rifle, a .45-caliber handgun, ammunition for both weapons and some knives.

Unbelievable.

Tom Crowley, a spokesman with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Dallas division, said agents were able to speak with Medina Torres and photograph the weapons.

"We traced the firearms, and there's no indication of fire arms trafficking," Crowley said.

The weapons were purchased by Medina Torres years ago, and no evidence of recent multiple weapons purchases was found, Crowley said.

More here. Also see video.

Update 1: To read updates on this visit the ReleaseRichard.com site.

Boy given detention for wearing a gun image on his shirt

A 1st Amendment freedom of speech lawsuit is currently pending over Donald Miller III, a High School Freshman, being told he must turn his shirt inside out, and then given a detention for refusing to comply. Yet another school "Zero Tolerance=Zero Thought Policy" related to images of guns. The shirt was a gift to Donald from his Uncle, Brian Souders, who purchased the shirt on his base Post Exchange just before he was deployed to Iraq, and Donald was wearing it in support of his Uncle & the US Military.

All I can say is, where do I get myself one of these shirts? If you know where I can find one please leave a comment or send an e-mail. It has an image of a gun on the front & back. It also has the following wording: "Volunteer Homeland Security" on the front, and "Special issue - Resident - Lifetime License - United States Terrorist Hunting Permit - Permit No. 91101 Gun Owner - No Bag Limit." on the back.

You can read more details at Fox, Lancasteronline, or Worldnetdaily.

Update 1: I'd like to thank ar15.com member SonOfNorway for letting me know where we can get our own terrorist hunting permit shirt. I think I'll buy some for myself & my children.

BB gun club denied approval to hold event at school

In State College Pensylvania, a BB gun club sought approval to hold a BB gun sports event at a middle school in the State College Area School District. They needed the school board to grant a one time exception to their existing "Zero Tolerance" Gun Policy so that the children who wish to participate in the event could bring their BB gun with them (It would be difficult to hold the event without BB guns). The current policy states that weapons and replicas of weapons are prohibited at all School District buildings.

The idea alone has already divided the school board, with some members saying they are worried about sending mixed messages to kids about bringing BB guns to school.

“We have had expulsions that have involved this policy,” said Lou Ann Evans, one of three board members who voted Monday against putting the proposal on the agenda for the next meeting.

I for one think it would have been a great event for the children to teach them gun safety & allow them to participate in a fun shooting sport. Shooting a BB gun is a lot safer than many popular sports played at schools such as Football (nothing against Football of course), so why can't they hold a BB gun shooting event at the school?

Unfortunately the board met this past Monday on Jan 28th & decided to NOT allow the exception:

After much discussion and community comment, the board voted not to make an exception to the district weapons policy for the BB gun championship competition’s request to use district facilities.

I say SHAME on THEM! Yet another example of Zero Tolerance with Zero Intelligent Thought!

Yet more Zero Tolerance Idiocy

Say Uncle & Bruce reported yet another example of Zero Tolerance Policy idiocy. A child was suspended for 3 days because he was writing with a pen that had a Glock logo on it in Georgia. Yes that is right - suspended for having the name Glock written on a pen. What exactly does that school administrator have against a perfectly nice Austrian family name? The boy was suspended for 3 days on Friday Jan 18th, 2008 (I took the liberty of correcting a few spelling errors):

. . . So, my phone rings Friday afternoon. It's the vice principal from my son's school saying that he needs to discuss a serious situation about my son. When I asked him what was going on, he tells me that a pen bearing a Glock logo is forbidden by school policy and that I need to come and pick up my son because there is a mandatory 3 day suspension because of the violation. Apparently, one of my son's teachers saw him writing with the pen during an assignment.

While I have the VP on the telephone, I retrieve my son's student handbook. Flipping though it, I see that weapons, replica weapons, pictures of weapons, and weapon images on keychains or other items are forbidden. The pen I had given him was one I picked up at a law enforcement firearms competition last year - which bore only the Glock logo, but not an image or rendition of a firearm. Nowhere does it say that a firearm company logo is restricted by school policy. I explain this to the VP.

So, the VP gets his handbook and looks through it. He was in agreement that the pen did not directly violate the policy, but that the Glock name was commonly known to be a firearm and therefore it technically was in violation . . .

After the boy, his father, and their attorney met with the Superintendent on Tuesday Jan 22nd, the suspension was overturned:

Well, the verdict is in...

I arrived at the superintendent's office at about 8:45am. He was already in his office and readily met with my Uncle Bill (my attorney), my son, and myself. He seemed to be rather nice and agreed that the suspension was uncalled for because the pen was not a physical or graphic representation of a weapon. He admitted that it was a bad judgment call on the VPs part which should have been thought over a little more; especially since my son does not have a disciplinary record. He apologized for the problem and told us that my son could return to school and that the disciplinary would be removed.

I took my son to school and met with the VP. This guy is about 30 years old and looks like a poster child for gay bathhouses. He did apologize lightly, but did not seem overly happy about it. Apparently the superintendent called him about 5am this morning and told him to 'make it right'. Our meeting very short. The VP ran off and left us with a receptionist. She apologized; returned the pen and gave us the disciplinary that removed from his record. I made sure by looking in his record folder while in the office that it was gone. I have all three copies of it now (white, yellow, and pink) - so there is not another copy of it in existence.

I returned the Glock pen to my son to use until it dies. At which point the pen becomes inoperable, I will be giving him another Glock pen. As far as I am concerned, he can use Glock pens forever . . .

As many have said, Zero Tolerance=Zero Thought

Update: Some have asked where to get their own glock pen that they can send to school with their children. This is actually a better pen than the promotional pen that they give away at events, I plan to order one myself.

Student suspended for having shotgun shells in her car!

Yet another wacky school district in our Nation. A High School student at Willow Canyon High School in Arizona named Kim Peters was suspended from school for having 2 cases of shotgun shells in her own vehicle while parked in a High School parking lot. The school administrators said that the shotgun shells could be classified as a "dangerous instrument"

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/1029shoot1029.html

If it were not for the students who have been suspended for drawing pictures of guns or for having 1 inch plastic GI Joe guns in their pockets due to the so-called "zero tolerance" policy our schools currently have than I would say I'm surprised. Unfortunately, many school officials have already proven that they are not bright enough to tell the difference between a drawing of a gun and a real gun, so I'm not surprised that the school administrators of Willow Canyon High School can't tell the difference between a shotgun shell & a shotgun.

Get real folks, a shotgun shell is not a "dangerous instrument" - if it were, boxes of them would not be sold on the bottom shelf of the local Walmart & local sporting goods stores where kids could easily reach them. The difference is, the people who run Walmart & sporting goods stores are smart enough to tie their own shoes. These school officials should not be hired for anything more complicated than being the greeter at a local Walmart Supercenter. Why in the world are we trusting them with the education of our children?

You'll find contact info for the Willow Canyon High School administrators on their website. Please send them a FRIENDLY email & kindly explain to them what the difference is between a shotgun shell and an actual firearm. Willow Canyon High School is part of the Dysart Unified School District. Here is the Dysart Unified School District Board Member contact info.

1st Update: The exact wording of the definition of a dangerous instrument which was what they used to unfairly punish her don't even apply to the events. Exact wording of the definition from their own Student & Parent Handbook is:

Dangerous Instruments/Explosive Devices means anything that under the circumstances in which it is used, attempted to be used, or threatened to be used, is readily capable of causing physical injury.

Even if you were to ignore the fact that shotgun shells without a gun are not capable of causing physical injury, she did not use, attempt to use, or threaten to use her shotgun shells in any way. They were sitting in an unopened box in her own personal vehicle, an extension of her own home space. Additionally there is not a single mention of the word ammunition or shotgun shells in the entire handbook because it is NOT banned.

The High School officials were 100% wrong on this & they need to admit their mistake as well as delete this gross injustice from Kim's record. If they refuse to do it, than Kim will need to appeal to the school board & they had better recognize the facts or face upset voters at the next board election. In addition to setting her record straight they need to render disciplinary action against those who signed off on this gross injustice. Perhaps suspension without pay or even better - termination - due to lack of education.

2nd Update:

I understand one of the board members is going to request an agenda item to discuss the misinterpretation of the dangerous instrument policy at the next Dysart Board Meeting on Nov 14th. If anyone would like to speak either during the initial "call to the audience" or during the specific agenda item, be sure to show up BEFORE the meeting begins to fill out a "request to speak" form - only those who are on the audience speaker list will be granted an opportunity to speak during the board meeting.

The meeting will begin @ 6PM & is located in the board room in the Nathaniel Dysart Education Center located at 15802 N. Parkview Place, Surprise, AZ 85374

3rd Update: Also check out this story of a boy who was told he could not wear an NRA shirt. The NRA sued on basis of 1st Amendment freedom of speech infringement & won.

To disarm or not to disarm, that is the question.

A very simple question is it not? To disarm the law abiding citizens or not to disarm them? People are talking about this question everywhere, people both for and against allowing adults to have their 2nd amendment right to bear arms sustained, even if only in the form of concealed carry, while on school grounds. I hear a number of standard arguments against it used over and over again, so I am going to discuss them here in detail.

1) "Someone who is mentally unstable might be able to get a CCW permit which would allow them to bring a gun onto school campus."

That argument is the most futile of all. If a mentally unstable person is able to walk or even ride in a wheelchair, he can already illegally carry a gun onto school campus. In fact, it has already happened a number of times such as at Columbine, VT, Pearl HS, Appalacian School of Law, etc. "Gun free zones" only keep the law abiding folks defenseless which makes the environment safer for illegally armed criminals or lunatics. Criminals break the law by definition & couldn't care less about breaking a "gun free zone" restriction. Criminals will already go to jail if caught with an illegal weapon, so why would they care about a gun free zone? Any mentally unstable person willing to shoot innocent victims will obviously not care about a gun free zone either.

Have you heard about the Pearl or Appalacian school shootings? If not, it is probably because those events were cut short by armed citizens who ran to their cars to get their weapons and forced the attack to an early end well before Police could arrive which most likely saved countless lives. In the case of Pearl HS, vice principal Joel Myrick had to run a quarter of a mile away to where his car was parked since the law prohibited him from having a weapon within a quarter mile of the school grounds. Did that law prevent Luke Woodham from going to Pearl HS with his weapon to open fire against the innocent victims on school grounds? Of course not. All it did was waste Joel's time by forcing him to run half a mile round trip before he could get back to stop the shooter. Afterwards the investigation found that the shooter had plans to visit yet another Pearl school to continue his rampage, so without the armed intervention of Joel Myrick the shooter would have been successful at even more carnage.

2) "An armed citizen could accidentally hurt a student or other bystander while trying to stop the attacker."

All CCW permit holders are required to know the law regarding the use of deadly force. In every state the law says that you are responsible for every bullet you fire, and accidentally killing an innocent bystander is NOT justifiable by any defense whatsoever. Any civilian who accidentally kills an innocent bystander will go to jail on manslaughter charges. As a result, any law abiding citizen carrying a gun is going to go out of their way to be extra careful to obey all of the normal safety rules such as: be sure of your backstop - know where your bullet will stop if you miss or shoot through your intended target, don't put your finger on the trigger until ready to shoot, don't point your gun at anything you are not willing to destroy, and always assume your weapon is loaded. The CCW holder is going to keep his or her weapon hidden until he or she can maneuver into a good position to fight back in the safest manner possible.

It is also interesting to note that not one person that I'm aware of who has used this argument has been able to specify a single example of such an accident happening, even though multiple independent studies show that there are between 1.5 & 2.5 Million cases of self defense uses of guns every year in the US alone, depending on the particular study. I on the other hand can name 2 school shootings that were brought to an early end by an adult with a gun without in so doing causing harm to a single innocent - Pearl HS & Appalacian School of Law (2 students with a gun with help from unarmed students in Appalacian's case). There are a number of states that already allow adults to carry weapons onto school campuses - if it is so dangerous why are those states all free from school shootings? If armed citizens are so unsafe why is it that although there have been hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of gun shows, each with thousands of weapons on site & at least hundreds of civilians carrying weapons, there has never been a single "gun show shooting"?

3) "A student could disarm the armed citizen & then use the gun to shoot people."

First of all, why would a student want to try to take a gun in a risky scenario like that when the student can just go get a gun via much easier methods such as burglary or the black market? Second of all, folks who carry a gun are always very aware of their gun & instinctively protect it at all times. It would be very difficult for the student to be successful, even if he were to decide to attempt it. Additionally, by the very nature of the weapon being concealed, how will the student even know that it exists?

4) "Only the Police should have guns. Teachers & students need to dial 911 to request help."

As we saw with both Columbine & VT, the bad guys have plenty of time to shoot a lot of people before the Police are able to break in & stop them. The Police are a reactive force by nature. As stated by VT Police Chief Wendell Flinchum: "We obviously can't have an armed guard in front of every classroom every day of the year." Even in cities that have fast average Police response times the average is normally 6 to 10 minutes. A lot of damage can be done in that amount of time. You can add to that the time it takes to surround, gather surveillance intel, study building layout via blueprints, and figure out where the bad guy & hostages are before they can storm in & take the bad guy down. Columbine went on for hours before Police were able to go in. If I were on the inside of a school being attacked by a bad guy I would already know where the bad guy is (the person shooting the innocent students), the layout of the school, & where the hostages are. In that type of a situation I'd have a great time advantage over the Police who need to prepare to come in blind. I would much prefer to have a self defense weapon than a cell phone. I'd prefer to take my chances fighting the bad guy than to sit around waiting to see if I will be shot before the Police come in. I can't imagine what would go through the minds of innocent victims waiting for their turn to be shot, all while knowing that they were disarmed by a worthless "gun free zone" policy which only served to make them easy prey.

5) "If helpful citizens have guns at the scene of a school shooting, the arriving Police could confuse them for the bad guy & shoot them by mistake."

It is actually very simple for the Police to figure out who the bad guy is. When on such a search if they find someone with a weapon they will shout "Freeze! Drop your weapon!" - the good guys will drop their weapon & freeze. The bad guy might keep his weapon, and may even start shooting at the Police as he tries to escape. If he does drop his weapon & freeze, then it will all be sorted out via witnesses & evidence.

It was not long ago that it was no big deal for even students to bring guns to school. They'd place them in their locker or backpack so that they could participate in target shooting events during school or to go hunting as soon as school was out. It was not until after someone had the "brilliant" idea of disarming all law abiding citizens while in school zones that our series of school shootings began.

"To disarm or not to disarm?" - what a stupid question.

Tell me what you think via comments link below. No email address or registration required.

Shame on eBay

Many are aware of eBay's announcement this past July that it would no longer allow gun accessories to be sold on its online auction system. Below is the email correspondence that I had with the "Office of the President" which turned out to be a form letter as I got the exact same reply from both the President of eBay & the Vice President of eBay's Trust & Safety division (Meg Whitman & Matt Halprin respectively) - I sent similar letters to other officials at eBay, but they did not respond at all.

This was the letter that I sent to them:

Hello, I've been a long time eBay member since nearly the beginning back sometime in the late 1990's. eBay is simply the BEST online auction system in the world, and I use it to buy things many times a year, and have sold some things from time to time as well.

I am however puzzled by eBay's recent ban on all things firearms related (even simple accessories not regulated by any government agency). I believe that the justification used was that some loony might have purchased some item or other via eBay. That seems like a slippery slope to me. Is eBay to ban all knives just because some loony uses it to execute a mass suicide group? Perhaps cool-aid because it was poisoned & used to kill a mass suicide group? Perhaps all baseball bats because bats are used many times a year to kill people by clobbering them over the head? All cameras because some of them could be used by child pornographers? All cars because some may be used by drunk drivers to kill innocent victims? All spoons because spoons are used to eat, and some people eat too much leading to obesity & health issues? You get my point I'm sure - eBay simply can't ban all tools that MIGHT be used for bad purposes by bad people. Guns are simply tools not inherently good or evil. Guns are used more than 2 Million times a year to ward off criminal attacks by normal citizens in the US alone (not including police use) - 98% of the time without even needing to fire a single shot (simply showing it or aiming it at the criminal is enough to make them stop), so guns are used Many more times every year for good than for evil. To solve the so-called "gun problem" (a more fitting name would be "criminal problem") we need to lock up the bad guys & throw away the key rather than letting them back on the streets just because they behaved well while locked up in a prison cell where they were simply not allowed to act bad. Guns are also used by many sportsmen like myself who enjoy target shooting & target matches. I own guns, but I am not evil.

eBay has competitors that sell not only gun accessories, but actual guns. None of them compare to eBay, but they're currently the only alternative. Since the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms) estimates that about 50% of American households have at least 1 firearm in the home, and the 2005 census estimate is that there are 111 Million households in the US with an average of 2.6 people in each household, that makes about 144 Million potential members of gun owning households in the US alone that eBay may alienate by taking this political stance.

Thanks for considering my viewpoint.

This was the reply I got from both (the only text changed between the two responses was the name of Matt Halprin vs Meg Whitman & He/his vs She/her):

Thank you for your recent email to Meg Whitman in regard to changes to our Firearms policy. She has asked that I review your email and respond on her behalf.

While many everyday items can be used to cause harm to an individual, most items we permit for sale on eBay are not designed with the intent to cause harm or are not likely to be used to cause harm. In general, if items are legal to buy and sell in an unrestricted manner, we allow them to be sold on eBay. Many firearm-related parts that can legally be bought or sold have historically been allowed on eBay.

However, after the tragedy at Virginia Tech, eBay's Trust and Safety team along with executives at the company felt it was important to re-examine our existing Firearms policy and evaluate if it still met the needs of our marketplace and our company.

While no items related to the incident were purchased illegally on our site, it was important to make some changes to ensure we do everything possible to provide a safe marketplace.

Currently we do not allow actual firearms on the site. After careful consideration our executives and our Trust and Safety team determined that any item required to fire a gun has no place on eBay. All of our policies are under constant review. As the Internet and the way our communities use the Internet evolves, our policies and our marketplace must evolve with it. We determined that this policy change was in the
best interest of promoting a safe marketplace for all members.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Terri
Office of the President

I then sent the following response:

Thanks for your response. Actually guns are not designed to cause harm. Guns are simply a tool no different than a box cutter. A gun is designed to be used for target practice, personal safety, officer safety, family safety, citizen safety, the safety of a woman to fight off a rapist, etc. A gun is a great equalizer - in the hands of a 100 Lb woman she becomes equal to a 300 Lb rapist, and can chase him away simply by showing it or pointing it at him 98% of the time. In the 2% of the time that she has to pull the trigger, even then it is better the bad guy take a hit rather than she be raped & possibly killed. In the hands of good citizens a gun is a tool for safety which is what they are designed for. A box cutter is deigned primarily for opening boxes, but as witnessed on September 11th box cutters were used inappropriately to do unimaginably awful things, much worse even than the incident at VT. How can eBay honestly go about censoring perfectly legal items every time someone uses one of them to do an evil deed? By that thought process, box cutters should be banned as well, since box cutters in the hands of those evil terrorists did much more harm than what happened at VT.

Perhaps black vests should be banned as well since bad people often wear black while perpetrating bad deeds. It is a slippery slope to start politicizing such a good auction site. My recommendation would be to stick with what eBay has been doing in the past - ban illegal & regulated things, but stay away from politics.

Since the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms) estimates that about 50% of American households have at least 1 firearm in the home, and the 2005 census estimate is that there are 111 Million households in the US with an average of 2.6 people in each household, that makes about 144 Million potential members of gun owning households in the US alone that eBay may alienate by taking this political stance.

Thanks for considering my viewpoint, and keep up the otherwise great work, as eBay is still the best auction site out there bar none. I know because today I had to start using a competitor's website when buying some additional gun magazines for my .22 rifle. They have a lot of room to grow just to catch up with where eBay is already at. I wasn't even able to use my paypal account because of a similar anti-gun paypal policy - I had to use my credit card directly & risk it being stolen by some hacker. If eBay is still unwilling to alter this stance, than hopefully some other auction & pay site will someday rise to the challenge & fill the giant gaping void eBay just created for 144 million law abiding American citizens who wish to be able to buy gun accessories & other non-restricted items at market prices via an auction site.

I never received further replies, I guess they ran out of form letters.