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PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: August 5, 2003
Dallas Morning News – No More Classified Ads for Handguns and Assault Weapons
Dallas, TX – The Dallas Morning News announced on July 6 that the newspaper will no longer accept classified ads for handguns, except from federally licensed firearms dealers. In addition, the newspaper will not accept advertisements for silencers, explosive materials, or any type of assault or fully automatic weapon. Advertisements for long guns – rifles and shotguns – are not affected by the new policy. The policy “ensures that The Dallas Morning News isn’t operating a marketplace that allows for the sale or trading of weapons outside the law,” said Steven Weaver, senior vice president/advertising. “The change is in the best interest of the community and The Dallas Morning News,” added Frank Leto, vice president/classified advertising.
The Dallas Morning News’ announcement came two months after the Houston Chronicle adopted a similar advertising policy on May 1.
The Dallas Morning News changed its policy after receiving a request from the Dallas Million Mom March. Marsha McCartney, co-president of the Dallas chapter said, “I am proud of my local newspaper for taking this small, but important, step. I hope that other newspapers in Texas will follow the example of The Dallas Morning News and the Houston Chronicle to become part of the solution rather than part of the problem.” The Dallas MMM is a participating organization in the National Campaign to Close the Newspaper Loophole – the unregulated sales of firearms through classified ads in newspapers. The campaign asks newspapers to voluntarily restrict firearms advertisements to licensed firearms dealers and to not accept classified ads for guns from unlicensed sellers. The campaign does not object to a newspaper taking firearms advertisements from licensed firearms dealers because licensed dealers, unlike unlicensed sellers who sell guns through the classifieds, are required to conduct criminal background checks on all buyers. Since the campaign began in November 2001, the following newspapers have changed their classified advertising policy on firearms: Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, Miami Herald, Sandusky (Ohio) Register, Willoughby (Ohio) News Herald, Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, Dubuque (Iowa) Telegraph Herald, Houston Chronicle, and now The Dallas Morning News. “The issue is not guns, but the way guns are sold,” said John Johnson, executive director of Iowans for the Prevention of Gun Violence, and coordinator for the campaign. “In an age of increasing concern for public safety, we find it difficult to defend a newspaper’s part in the private sale of firearms by unlicensed sellers without a criminal background check of the would-be buyer.
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