If you sell firearms, run a range, host gun shows, or promote anything in the 2A space, the way you reach your customers just changed again. This time the change is big enough that every firearm business needs to rethink how it builds and talks to its customer list.
Here is what happened, why it matters more than it looks, and exactly what to do about it.
The Update
Firearm content is banned on toll-free numbers
As of October 1, the carriers notified us that firearm content is no longer allowed on toll-free numbers. If your shop, range, or FFL was texting customers from a toll-free number, that door is now closed.
Here is the exact language from the carrier notice:
“Gun show promotions are being phased out. Anything gun-related, including events, will be disallowed regardless of the age gate or opt-in.”
Read that again. Regardless of the age gate. Regardless of opt-in. You can do everything right, verify every customer’s age, collect clean consent, and the carriers will still block your message because of what you sell.
What this covers
The language is intentionally broad. “Anything gun-related” is not limited to product promotions. Based on the notice, expect all of the following to be blocked on toll-free:
- Product promotions, sales, and restock alerts
- Gun show announcements and vendor promotions
- Range events, leagues, classes, and training courses
- Anything else the carriers decide falls under the firearm category
If you are a gun show promoter, this hits you hardest. The notice calls out gun show promotions by name. Your primary way of filling the floor on event weekend just got cut off on one of the most common texting routes in the industry.
What still works, for now
Two routes remain open for firearm businesses that want to text: 10DLC and short codes. Both are still getting approved.
Notice the words “for now.” Those approvals are not guaranteed, and the bar to get them keeps moving.
The Problem
The carriers keep tightening the rules
This did not come out of nowhere. Look at the last 18 months. The rules have gotten tighter, then tighter again. This year the carriers changed their approval requirements nearly every single month.
Firearms have always sat in the carriers’ restricted content bucket. Under CTIA’s messaging guidelines, firearms are grouped with sex, hate, alcohol, and tobacco in what the industry calls SHAFT content. That category has been treated as high risk for years. What changed recently is how aggressively the carriers enforce it, and how often they rewrite the playbook for getting approved.
For a business owner, that means a registration that worked in March can get rejected in June. A campaign that went out clean last month can get filtered this month. And you usually find out after the fact, when your Black Friday blast never lands.
You are building on rented land
Here is the real problem. When your only line to your customers runs through the phone carriers, you do not control that line. They do.
The carriers are not your partners. They are private companies that have made it clear they are uncomfortable with your industry. Legal products, legal events, consenting adult customers: none of that has stopped them from restricting firearm content, and the October 1 notice proves it will not stop them going forward.
If you spent years building a text list and the carriers decide tomorrow that 10DLC is next, that list stops working overnight. That is not a hypothetical. That is the direction every change of the last 18 months has pointed.
Too many businesses never earned consent
There is a second problem, and this one is on us as an industry.
A lot of firearm businesses never got real consent from their customers in the first place. They pulled phone numbers from old receipts, transfer paperwork, or event sign-in sheets, and then they blast marketing and support messages to people who never opted in.
That approach was always going to fail. When people never opt in and you push a random text at them, opt-outs spike. Spam complaints go up. And complaints are exactly what carriers point to when they justify tighter filtering. Businesses texting without consent hand the carriers the ammunition they use against the rest of us.
Most owners are not building their list at all
The third problem is the simplest one. Most shops and ranges are not actively growing their list.
We work with a lot of retailers and ranges, and many of them are terrible at training their staff on one simple habit: asking every customer to sign up. Customers walk out the door every day without ever being asked. Every one of those is a lost sale on your next promotion.
The Solution
Keep texting where you can
Do not abandon text. If you are approved on 10DLC or short codes, keep using them. Text is still a strong channel for opted-in customers, and you should get every bit of value out of it while it lasts.
But stop treating it as your only channel. Your plan needs to work even if the carriers make another change next month.
Add Telegram through OtterText
That instability is exactly why we built Telegram into OtterText.
Telegram is not anti-gun like the phone carriers. Your promotions, Black Friday deals, new arrivals, gun show announcements, and range events reach your customers without a carrier deciding whether your industry is allowed to talk.
A Telegram channel also gives you room to grow. Channels support an unlimited number of subscribers, and your posts can carry images, video, and links, so a new arrival or an event flyer looks the way you want it to.
The best part: you run it from the same OtterText account you already use. Text where it works, Telegram everywhere else, one dashboard.
“I don’t want to make customers download an app”
This is the pushback we hear most. Here is a different way to look at it.
Go to Petco and ask about your rewards. Petco requires you to download their app to see your rewards, activate them, and redeem them. Millions of people do it without a second thought, because they want what is on the other side.
Your customers are no different. When they want your deals, your restock alerts, and your promotions, they will download an app to get them. If someone will not take ten seconds to join your channel, they were never going to buy from your text blast anyway.
Build your list on consent
The businesses that push back hardest on Telegram are usually the ones that never got consent. They want to keep sending messages to people who never asked for them. That approach is dead, on any channel.
Flip it. Invite people in:
“Join our Telegram channel and be the first to hear about our best offers, Black Friday deals, and promotions.”
The people who sign up actually want to hear from you. They open your messages, they show up to your events, and they buy. Fewer opt-outs, zero spam complaints, and a list that is worth building. You will still get sign-ups, because these are people who actually want to sign up.
Train your staff to ask
This is where most owners leave money on the table.
Look at your local grocery store. Every time you check out, the cashier asks: Do you want to donate to the Humane Society? Want to support the animal shelter? Want to round up for this nonprofit? Every single transaction, they are pushing something. That does not happen by accident. Grocery stores train their employees to ask, every time.
Run your operation the same way. At your counter, it should sound like this:
“Hey Jill, we like to keep our customers updated on all our special promotions. Want in?”
“Yeah, that sounds great.”
“Perfect. Scan this QR code and you’re locked in.”
That is the entire script. Put the QR code at the register, on the counter mat, on the lane check-in desk, and on every receipt. Make asking part of the checkout process, not something staff remember to do when it is slow.
The results speak for themselves. The top 1% of our clients, the ones who run their business like a business, average 500+ new sign-ups a month. The difference is not their product or their location. They trained their staff to ask the question at every single checkout.
Stop being a lazy owner. Treat your business like a business and you will see the results.
The channel matters less than the list
Once you build a list of people who actually want to hear from you, the medium matters far less than you think. Text, Telegram, or a custom app: an opted-in customer reads your message.
Email is the exception. Almost nobody opens email anymore, which is why it should never be your primary channel.
For our Enterprise and Premium customers, OtterText also builds custom branded apps. Your customers get your deals in an app with your name on it, and no carrier sits between you and them.
Your action plan this week
- Check whether any of your campaigns run on a toll-free number. If they do, they are blocked for firearm content now.
- Keep your 10DLC or short code campaigns running if they are approved.
- Turn on Telegram in your OtterText account and set up your channel.
- Print a QR code for the register, the range desk, and your receipts.
- Train every staff member on the checkout script and hold them to it.
- Announce the channel to your existing opted-in customers so they move over with you.
Build a list the carriers cannot touch
The carriers will keep changing the rules. October 1 will not be the last notice. The firearm businesses that come out ahead are the ones that stop depending on carrier goodwill and start owning their customer relationships.
Talk to the OtterText team about adding Telegram channels to your account today.
