UPS to Halt Ground Shipments for Delivery of Handguns

United Parcel Service of America Inc., the world’s largest package delivery company, said Thursday that it will stop shipping handguns through its ground service, leaving gun makers to pay higher air rates or find other ways to move their merchandise.

The Atlanta-based company said it will restrict all handguns to its Next Day Air Service.

“We’re restricting all handguns to next-day air,” UPS spokesman Bob Godlewski said.

The move comes amid an ongoing national debate on gun control, fueled by a series of mass shootings at schools and other public places.

“There’s a lot of concern among the public at large that is resonating through Congress and through city halls across America. People want to make sure that guns don’t fall into the wrong hands,” Godlewski said.

The change takes effect Monday and was made to improve security by ensuring that handguns are in the shipping system as short a time as possible, he said.

“The longer amount of time that something’s in the system, the more opportunities for it to go missing,” Godlewski said.

Coast-to-coast ground transportation can take as long as a week, Godlewski said. Packages shipped through the company’s overnight air routes pass through fewer hands than those shipped by ground, and are closely monitored via electronic tracking.

The 92-year-old shipping company already requires an adult’s signature to accept delivery of guns.

Rifles and shotguns, which are harder to conceal, will continue to be shipped by UPS’ brown delivery vans.

Representatives of gun makers said overnight delivery would increase the costs of shipping weapons fourfold, leaving manufacturers with the choice of finding a more cost-effective alternative or passing higher prices on to customers.

The U.S. Postal Service is legally barred from shipping handguns.

Godlewski said the higher fees for air shipping were not a motive in the change.

“It weighed more heavily toward being socially responsible,” he said. “We want to ship handguns as safely as possible. It’s in everybody’s best interest.”

UPS officials had been discussing the policy revision for several months. Customers were notified of the change in a letter dated last Friday.

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