Several years ago I needed to send a scope back to Leupold for warranty repair work. The guy behind the counter at the UPS Store asked me what I was shipping. I told him it was a scope. He asked if it was a scope that mounted on a rifle. I said yes. He said "I'm sorry sir, we can not ship anything related to firearms".
To say I was pissed is an understatement. I will never do business with, or step foot inside another UPS Store ever again.
Several years ago, in order for an "unlicensed" person ( a non-FFL holder) to ship a firearm via UPS, you had to ship it directly from a UPS Customer Center (&
not from an independently owned/operated UPS Store franchise location), & according to federal law, the firearm could only be shipped to an FFL holder or to yourself, such as shipping a gun to yourself at a remote hunting lodge ahead of your arrival to avoid having to fly with a firearm as checked baggage.
However, more recently, UPS has modified their shipping policies to prohibit unlicensed persons from shipping firearms or even firearms
parts (with the exception of optics for some reason) via
any of the services they offer. In order to ship firearms and/or firearms parts via UPS these days, you must be a "federally licensed" manufacturer, dealer, importer, etc. and "have an approved UPS agreement for the transportation of Firearm Products. No exceptions.
https://www.ups.com/us/en/support/s...egulated-items/prohibited-items/firearms.page
There's been no changes in federal law regarding these activities, merely a policy change @ UPS to prohibit individuals for practicing lawful commerce.
Although I have no proof, I strongly suspect that this change came about due to the the heavy hand of the federal government under the Biden administration, leaning on corporations to discourage their involvement in facilitating anything to do with lawful firearms commerce, the same as they did with the banking industry to persuade banks from financial dealings with firearms manufacturers, distributors, & retailers and persuading credit card companies to track firearms related purchases of their cardholders. I say this because FedEx also similarly changed their policies regarding firearms related shipments around the same time that UPS did...
https://www.fedex.com/en-us/shipping/how-to-ship-firearms.html
Now before you dismiss this as just another conspiracy theory, check it out for yourself.