Gun control has been a hot button issue nationwide. President Obama issued an executive order late last year, mandating tougher rules for online gun sales.
In late January, Facebook tightened its policy on firearm sales. Users would be removed for allowing person to person gun sales
Since the new policy took effect, the Facebook group "Omaha Gun Tech" has had to fight to stay up and running.
“My group was supposed to be an information group, occasionally you would get people who sell firearms, and we would have people who would report them, and Facebook pulled it down,” said the group’s founder Jerry Meckna.
In February, Facebook shut down “Omaha Gun Tech” after some gun sales were found on their page.
“When the group was closed, it was actually kind of sad,” said Meckna, he wanted to get the page back up quickly, “it's a group but to me it’s like an extension of family, it's a community we look out for each other, we care about each other, I did everything I could to try and get to the group reinstated as quick as I could.”
A small group of people within Facebook met with Meckna and were able to get the group running again, now he has to watch what the nearly 4,000 members are posting.
“If a post comes up that shouldn't I hurry up and take it down, then I’ll send that person a private message,” he said.
Meckna said the group was never about selling guns, it was all about education.
“I was a blogger and I wanted to create a community where people have questions about firearms could join and get those questions answered.”
There are now specific rules for the group so they do not get shut down again, and they can keep taking firearms.
“We put a lot of information out there to help people,” said Meckna.
KMTV reached out to Facebook about their policy, the issued us this statement:
Our enforcement is focused on posts and content that violate the policy prohibiting coordination of 'peer-to-peer' firearms sales on Facebook. Licensed firearm retailers will still be able to post about their goods and services on Facebook while completing sales transactions off Facebook.
We have systems in place to review and remove content reported by the Facebook community to be in violation of our terms of service. When reviewing a group, that includes a holistic look at the group. After a determination of a violation we do provide the opportunity to come into compliance or to request a review in the case of an error, at which point removed posts or content may be reinstated.
-Facebook Spokesperson
