(Headline USA) Eighteen state attorneys general called on UPS and FedEx this week to clarify whether they are tracking firearm sales without a warrant.
The state leaders asked the two shipping companies in a letter to confirm whether their policies allow them to “track firearm sales with unprecedented specificity and bypass warrant requirements to share that information with federal agencies.”
They cited one policy in which the shipping companies require consumers who hold federal firearms licenses to create “separate shipping accounts” for firearms and other firearm-related products.
“In addition to creating three distinct shipping groups, [FedEx and UPS] now apparently demands that gun store owners retain documents about what specific items those shipments contain and make that information available to FedEx upon request,” the letter reads. “These demands, in tandem, allow FedEx to create a database of American gun purchasers and determine exactly what items they purchased.”
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said he’s received complaints from “several Montanans who hold Federal Firearms Licenses” who worry the shipping companies could send their information to the Biden administration.
“What this looks to me, and a lot my colleagues, is the administration … can’t get more gun control passed through the Senate and through the House. And so what they’re trying to do is pressure their friends in large business to do it for them,” Knudsen said.
Knudsen said he finds it “extremely convenient” that UPS and FedEx rolled out this new policy at the same time.
“This smells of the ATF. This smells of the Biden administration. And that’s what we’re asking for. I want to know, is this through the ATF because it is then they’re in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act,” he said.
The attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming also signed onto the letter.
