Help, on one sheet.
Free2Carry grades how businesses and politicians treat the Second Amendment — every grade built from sourced, dated actions you can check yourself. This page is the map: what the letters mean, what the icons say, and everything you can do here.
The grades, A to F
Every graded record carries a letter from A to F, computed from an index that runs −100 to +100. The letters mean the same thing everywhere on the site:
A muted C means “neutral, nothing on record.” Most companies have never taken a position on the Second Amendment, and that is not a failing grade — a listing with no sourced actions starts as a neutral C, drawn in grey rather than C’s own colour so an assumed grade never looks like an earned one. Where the caption says no position found, we researched the company and found nothing — that is a dated finding, not a gap. Where it says no record yet, nobody has looked yet.
A dash (–) means no grade exists — used for candidates without a researched record (we never assume a politician is neutral) and for record lanes with no evidence. “No recent evidence” means a record exists but everything in it is too old to fairly support a current letter — the receipts stand on their own dates.
split · customer F under a directory letter flags a company whose two lanes point opposite ways — pro on one, anti on the other. The letter above it is still the honest weighted verdict; the flag names the lane that cuts the other way, and the company’s own page spells it out in plain terms.
≈ before a score on a candidate’s scorecard history means a group published a letter grade and we translated it to a percentage so the column reads on one scale. Hover it and the group’s original published value is right there.
The three lanes of a record
Every graded company answers two separate questions, and the overall grade weighs both:
- AS A CUSTOMER — How do they treat gun owners who spend money there?
- AS A SUPPORTER — Do they defend the right?
The two can disagree — a company can lobby for the right while turning away gun-owner customers, or the reverse — which is exactly why they are graded separately. A graded page also carries an IN PLAIN TERMS line saying what the letters mean together, in one sentence derived from the grades themselves.
The CONSUMER GRADE is a different thing entirely: it averages what community members report in reviews. Opinion, clearly labelled as opinion — it never touches the record grade, which is built only from receipts.
What moves a grade
Only sourced, dated actions enter the math — every entry links a source you can open, and an entry the source cannot hold up comes down (see the corrections policy). Actions weigh by how much they commit the actor:
| A recorded vote on a firearms bill | HIGH IMPACT |
| A donation or PAC contribution | HIGH IMPACT |
| A corporate policy | HIGH IMPACT |
| Payments decisions and deplatforming | HIGH IMPACT |
| Writing a firearms bill | HIGH IMPACT |
| A public statement | MED IMPACT |
| Lobbying on firearms legislation | MED IMPACT |
| Sponsoring an event or cause | MED IMPACT |
| Co-signing someone else's bill | LOW IMPACT |
| Local programs and training | LOW IMPACT |
Newer actions count more than old ones — a decade-old donation fades; a policy from last month does not. Reversals are recorded as new entries with their own dates, never by erasing the history.
The icons and chips
Businesses, brands, candidates, money
- Businesses are storefronts — 3.5 million of them, searchable by name or place. Each can carry its own record, its own reviews, and its own owner.
- Brands are corporate records — the chain behind the storefronts. A corporate action reaches every location at once, so a storefront with no record of its own inherits its parent’s grade, labelled as such.
- Candidates carry voting records, donations received, and third-party scorecards — federal and state, searchable by your ballot.
- Money follows the institutions your money moves through — banks, processors, insurers — and how they treat the firearms industry.
Everything you can do here
- See who’s on my ballot — enter your ZIP and get the 2A record of everyone you can actually vote for.
- Report an action — saw a donation, policy or statement we missed? File it with a source. An editor verifies it before it touches any grade; that human gate is the whole system.
- Leave a review — on any business, brand or candidate page. Reviews feed the consumer grade, never the record grade.
- Add a business — not listed yet? Add it. Approved additions appear on the homepage’s RECENTLY ADDED strip.
- Claim your business — the UNCLAIMED chip on your listing, or the claim form further down its page. Claiming is free: owners keep their own details, hours and contact info right. Replying to reviews comes with the Enhanced Listing.
- Watch anything — the bell on any record page, for grade-change notifications.
- Report an error — if a source does not hold an entry up, the entry goes.
Everything here is informational — grades reflect public records and community input, not endorsements. The terms and privacy policy have the rest.