The taxi-ish service has forbidden drivers and customers from carrying firearms.
The New Republic reports a policy reversal in the wake of last week's gun massacre in Charleston.
Uber representative Matt McKenna shared a statement from the company in an email:
We have adopted a no-firearms policy to ensure that both riders and drivers feel safe and comfortable on the platform. We made this policy change after assessing existing policies and carefully reviewing recent feedback from both riders and driver-partners.
In April, The New Republic reported that Uber’s policy “requires all its drivers to abide by local, state, and federal laws pertaining to transporting firearms in vehicles,” a policy that differed significantly from that of another ride-sharing service, Lyft. Lyft has a “strict ‘No Weapons’ policy,” a decision that the company said comes “from a community perspective—it’s hard to know what someone else is or isn’t comfortable with.”
