About · Established 2026
Building the modern firearms classifieds — one state at a time.
The legal private-firearms classifieds category is one of the strangest corners of the internet. Federal law allows private intrastate firearm sales between same-state residents. Stripe, PayPal, Venmo, the App Store, and Google Ads all ban firearms commerce. The result: a category that cannot be a marketplace, cannot be a mobile app, cannot run normal advertising. It can only be a per-state classifieds publisher.
For two decades, that publisher has mostly been a single-operator, aging-PHP, scam-ridden, ad-cluttered site per state. Florida Gun Trader, Texas Gun Trader, a handful of others. They work because there’s no alternative. We think there should be.
The Gun Trader Network is one platform across every US state and DC, with each state operating under its own “[State] Gun Trader” brand and its own state-mascot identity. Every account is phone-verified. Every photo is perceptual-hash-checked against the entire network. Every listing flows through AI moderation before publishing. Every state’s legal compliance — assault-weapon definitions, magazine limits, FFL routing, permit requirements — is absorbed into the platform automatically.
What we are
We are a classifieds publisher under 47 U.S.C. § 230. We don’t broker sales, hold escrow, ship firearms, or process buyer-side payments. Federal law allows private intrastate firearms sales between same-state residents. We publish the listing; the buyer and seller talk through our messaging system; they meet in person. That’s the product.
We are not a marketplace. We do not facilitate any transaction. Every transaction occurs entirely off-platform between users in compliance with all federal, state, and local law.
What we do differently
Per-state mascot, per-state brand
Every state site has its own state-animal mascot in the wordmark. Buyers in Wisconsin see a badger; buyers in Tennessee see a raccoon; buyers in Oklahoma see a bison. Local identity, not national homogeny.
Phone-verified accounts
Every seller signs up with a phone number we verify via SMS through Twilio. Burner-VOIP numbers and known scammer carriers are blocklisted at signup.
Photo-hash dedup
Every uploaded photo is perceptual-hashed against every previous photo across the network. Reposts of the same listing in different states get auto-flagged.
In-state IP matching
Listings posted from out-of-state IPs get a visible badge on the listing card. Doesn't block (some users travel) but signals to buyers.
AI moderation pipeline
Every listing's title, description, photos, and price flow through a Claude-powered classifier that flags scam patterns, stock-photo theft, and items that violate state law.
Per-state legal engine
The platform knows every state's assault-weapon definition, magazine capacity limit, permit requirement, FFL-routing rule, and waiting period — and surfaces them on the listing form before a user can post.
No fees, no commissions, no upsell
Free to post. Free to browse. Free to message. We make money from FFL banner advertising, not from users.
Who runs this
GTN Holdings, LLC — a US-based, single-operator company. We engage outside counsel for state-by-state legal review and a high-risk merchant processor for advertiser billing. We run on Cloudflare R2 + Hetzner (US data center) + Postgres + Anthropic Claude for moderation. The whole platform is designed to run lean — automation is the product.