When the average American thinks of discrimination, they think of it in terms of race or perhaps something socially-related, e.g., the plain girl who is not selected for a sorority that thrives on fairness of face, the Future Trophy Wives of America or the guy who is blackballed for membership in the country club because people don't like him. eBay, however, has its own form of bigotry. It happens to be directed against gun owners.

In its very early days, eBay listed firearms, just as they list collectibles, automobiles and every other thing anyone wants to sell. About eight or ten years back, eBay stopped accepting firearms qua firearms, but continued to accept listings for component parts like bolts, magazines, firing pins, trigger groups; that sort of thing. About two years ago, even that was cut back. Today, you can find listings for stocks, custom pistol grips, scope, scope mounts, scope rings, stripper clips for loading rifles and other things that are not working parts of guns, but not much else.

Now, that's an annoyance. In fact, it helped a couple of other online auction sites, notably gunbroker.com and gunsamerica.com start up and rise to prominence in the shooting world. Both of them have search engines similar to eBay's and auction listings similar to eBay's, but with this difference: they are willing to deal in firearms, components and accessories without the "scruples," and I use the term loosely, eBay appears to have. Fine. I don't have much of a problem looking for what might be perceived as a specialty item on a specialty auction site.

What is a long way past annoyance, however, is what eBay chose to do with PayPal. Now don't get me wrong; I like PayPal quite a lot, both as a seller and as a buyer on eBay. I like the fact that eBay finally made PayPal available to buyers and retailers who wanted the convenience and safety of the PayPal system to buy things outside eBay. I felt that was astute of them, maybe even generous, because it facilitated online retail sales. But then eBay loosed a skunk into the picnic of online buying and selling by actively practicing their bigotry.

PayPal and eBay both took to cancelling the accounts of any members who used PayPal to buy firearms or ammunition online. Not all the time, and not to every member; but with enough frequency according to anecdotal reports I've had from fellow gun owners that today no one who owns a gun and buys or sells on eBay will use PayPal for their firearms-related purchases. Nor will many sellers on gunbroker.com accept PayPal for purchases, for exactly the same reason.

As a direct result of eBay's corporate bigotry, many gun owners I know no longer buy and sell on ebay, but have moved their sales and purchases to other online auction sites rather than put up with eBay's prejudice against gun owners. To be charitable towards the corporate bigots, they may be concerned that someone might buy gun parts and then go shoot someone, and some ambulance-chasing lawyer might try to go after eBay or PayPal because of their deep pockets; and they are trying to protect their investors. But I don't believe that. EBay could deal with the gun issue by simply refusing to allow any firearms-related anythings to be sold on their site. And PayPal is simply a dead-drop clearinghouse of credit card and bank account sales, meant to prevent sellers from getting credit card info and then abusing it. No one would hold them responsible for a buyer buying something that was later used in a crime. So their refusal to allow firearms-related transactions cannot be seen as antyhing other than what it is: plain and simple discrimination against a group of people.

It's become known that eBay's leadership is composed of antigunners. Now, that's their right. The Constitution gives them the right to hold any beliefs that they want. But their using those beliefs against others is discrimination. The believers in the Second Amendments who own firearms are responding to the eBay/PayPal bigotry by voting with their feet and taking their business elsewhere. And that's their right. However, at a time when eBay's pool of potential users is running dry, and considering there are 85 million people in the United States who own guns, the thought does occur to me eBay is cutting off its nose to spite its face.

This is supposed to be the modern world. And ours is supposed to be an advanced country. It is in fact very highly urbanized. But lots of gun lovers seem to think they are still living on the wild frontier. Sure you needed a gun then, to hunt for game or shoot varmints, or kill Indians. Now the love of them is just hanging around among some mostly Southern men as a cultural anachronism. Which would be OK, except said love makes guns available in great numbers to desperate poor people and nutcases.

Have you noticed that it's now become a routine part of our culture when you're really, really, REALLY mad at your place of work or study to get out your gun and go kill a bunch of people there?

I am glad eBay decided to avoid virtually unlimited liability for the inevitable such case where he gun turned out to have been sold on eBay to a psychopath. I am sorry our right wing Supreme Court disagrees with me on the subject of guns. It just puts off that much further the already-distant time when the US will actually become civilized.