Buybacks Are Bullshit
Oct21
on October 21, 2013
at 1:01 am
Chapter: October 2013
Characters: Archibald Q. Gunowner and his wife Brenda.
As the title says: I think gun buybacks are fucking bullshit. Period.
It’s the local government trying to impress morons by saying “HAY LOOK SEE WE’RE MAKING YOU SAFER.” And people come forward. Usually with busted-assed pistols that haven’t been fired since Eisenhower was president, ancient shotguns that granddad kept in the garage, and broken, abused rifles that no self-respecting criminal would dare to use in a robbery. It’s bullshit. Nothing but. It doesn’t help, it doesn’t get firearms out of the hands of violent criminals, it’s just a waste of time, guns, and tax dollars.
It’s a waste of time, resources, and taxpayer dollars when your local government has one of these buyback programs. And it doesn’t make you safer. Not one whit.
There’s also the tiny little legal problem of %GOVERNMENT ENTITY% acting as an unlicensed type 01 FFL, but when have laws ever applied to the lawgivers?
I wish I had about 20 large in the bank; at the next buyback (sic) I’d set up a banner reading “BRING ME YOUR PRE-1963 GUNS AND I’LL GIVE YOU FAIR VALUE FOR THEM” and have many many copies of my C&R on hand.
This is why they usually give giftcards. They aren’t buying them, since you don’t actually get real money.
Real money as in the privately owned federal reserve made-up-number receipts, or real money as in the gold standard? Because the latter doesn’t exist anymore, and the former isn’t real.
Also to my mind trade/barter/exchange etc is the same thing as buying. You used to literally trade for gold, you just didn’t carry the gold. Now you trade for made up numbers that others agree to trade for goods & services later. It’s all payment, notional or real. Maybe the law is poorly written to only consider notional payments as buying, I wouldn’t know, but if it is it seems farcical to me.
The law, poorly written? Perish the thought!
Also, to be fair, here in Texas, a private transaction is fully legal. All it needs, by law, is a handshake and agreement on price and product.
Very true. However, if you appear to be engaged in the business of buying and/or selling firearms, your friendly neighborhood batmen will want a word with you.
Here’s how ours worked recently. I offered to take a few grand in cash out there and buy anything decent at fair (but low, but still higher than buyback $) prices. There was NOTHING worth buying.
http://www.wdrb.com/story/20647290/firearms-from-new-albanys-december-buyback-event-destroyed
Not a single stolen/wanted gun was turned in, and almost everything was broken, rusted, terribly abused old guns. Some could be prettied up into nice guns with some love but all this did was turn a bunch of current gun owners into slightly less broke gun buyers who ran to the gun store to buy newer guns 😀
Sorry forgot to add the original link, too. A total of *2* ‘assault’ style weapons. One was a SKS, the other a WASR-10 semi auto Century model. Most of the handguns were Lorcins and Phoenix Arms and Jennings and Ravens and such for which $200 was a no-brainer.
http://www.wdrb.com/story/20441082/new-albany-gun-buyback-program-runs-out-of-money-in-90-minutes
There was a gun buyback in Connecticut recently where a woman turned in, no shit, a real StG44 that had been a war bringback. Fortunately one of the cops working at the buyback was a firearms enthusiast who recognized it for what it was and saw that the gun made its way to a museum rather than being destroyed.
Yup, I saw that as well.
Most cops aren’t real big firearm enthusiasts though, especially in Urban areas. I shudder to think of what else made its way to the smelter.
“Most”?
What was that percentage of all statistics which are made up on the spot? 😀
43%
Not to mention that these events frequently occur in populated areas that likely are in a “gun free school zone”…or require travel through them with guns unsecured. Good luck explaining the semi-auto on the passenger seat when stopped 2 blocks away for a busted tail light.
100% agree
On the other hand, the $50 gift certificate to the local high-end butcher was nice. All it cost me was an old French “Unique” in disgusting condition. I found it behind a pile of bricks in the basement of the house I bought years ago.
With a good soak of Corrosion-X, the slide worked so they had to accept it as “functional”. I ate dry-aged ribeye that night.
Now THAT is revenge served hot!
😀
Well, it might get guns out of the hands of home invaders…
Who broke into houses with gun collections…
when they heard about the buyback…
I’m sure that helped crime, somehow…
As someone from England, if I saw someone with that assault rifle on my streets I’d first laugh due to thinking it to be a toy, then once realising it is not… I’d shit a brick.
That’s a submachine gun, not an assault rifle. And an AR-15 is not an assault rifle. A selective-fire rifle chambered for a cartridge of intermediate power. Selective Fire here refers to the ability to change the rifle from semi-auto, which fires one round per pull of the trigger, to some form of automatic or burst fire, which fires more than one round per pull.
In addition, there are some elements which when added to a Semi-Automatic rifle will bring it into the legal definition of “Assault Rifle.” Don’t count on the press or lay persons to know what thoese elements are, or to accurately report them.
Hell, don’t expect the authorities to accurately report them!
Assault weapon, not rifle. They’re completely different. For one, the former doesn’t fucking exist as a legal definition.
Fine. Though you completely understood my intent, so I’ll consider the communication a success. :p
Unless that person was an active shooter, why would you be concerned? Admittedly, in England they would be breaking many laws, but just carrying the weapon won’t cause anyone any harm (OK, maybe a rubbernecker accident).
Never underestimate how stupid criminals and wannabe criminals can be about weapons though.
Waaaay back, i got prodded by, let´s call them dumb and dumber, two brothers of a friend of mine, about 12 at the time. “We found a shotgun, can you help us find some ammo?” I blinked a couple of times and said i´d have to see it to know what ammo it needed, actualy intending to snatch it and drop it in a river. Frankly, my friend was not the sharpest tool in the house, and he had some 5 years on his brothers.
Now i had no thought of them doing something intentionaly bad with this gun they said they found, but it was just an accident waiting to happen or they sold it to someone who was actualy going to use it. Better safe than sorry. So they led me away to their “hidaway”, all the while describing how they had “made the gun cooler by chopping off the barrel and buttstock” with a hacksaw. In my quiet mind i was hoping they ruined it already so i could declare it broken and not have to bother more.
So we get to their hideout and they bring it out, roll it out of the towel they wrapped it in. I take one look and then thump them at the back of the head. What they had hacked up was an 1880 localy manufactured Remington Rolling Block rifle they stole from a summer house where it had been a mantle piece.
I had to spend 2 hours explaining to them, if they tried to fire a shotgunshell out of that it would blow up in their face if they could actualy get the shell to fit.
I just spent the last 15 minutes cracking up laughing. This, after spitting my coffee all over the damn place after reading it.
Pardon me while I go clean my laptop. Swede, your posts need to come with a warning – “Don’t Drink While Reading.”
Well, that’s one way of getting rid of the evidence, isn’t it? “Hi, you the guys investigating those home invasions and that drive-by shooting? Yeah? Okay, got the murder weapon right here, my fingerprints all over it. You guys want to melt it down for me so it can’t be used in evidence? Thanks. That’s cool. Hey, what? You pay me to ditch this thing this way? Cool, man. I’m gonna bring you all the evidence I need to destroy. By the way, how much will you pay for an ounce of good-quality weed?” Imagine the police setting up a regular weed buyback at $400/oz …
Pretty much my thought, too.
This is why, in Canada, gun buy-backs are done by pairs of officers who drive to the home of anyone who calls in, and NOT at a police station or community centre, where the media can get a look at the goings-on. After it’s all over, they will post an article on the news, showing the tables and shopping-carts-full of guns turned in. Those of us who pay attention see the same guns displayed over and over, old tapes, I suppose.
Also, it gives the police an opportunity to look around for other guns, in preparation for the day of the inevitable confiscation effort. 😉
And then there are the FFLs who use buybacks to get rid of unsalabe merchandise. Better to get some money out of it than let it rust on the shelf.
Interesting thought. But does that actually happen?
Yup, it’s where rusty nuggets go to die.
In the podunk out-West town where some compatriots of mine live, the local batch of anti-gunners sponsor a buyback every year (or more often than that, depending upon the political climate.) And every year, a bunch of folks from a local forum get together, put on suits and ties, make big banners that say “I’ll buy your gun for !” And frequently, they walk away with quite a nice catch. One gent secured a Colt Python, while another saved a matched pair of Ruger Vaqueros. And yes, as it’s a personal/private transaction, no FFL is required and it’s perfectly legal.
That’s supposed to say “I’ll buy your gun for (value of gift card + $10)!”
Intersting.
How much hate gets flung their way, and how large are the shit-eating grins on their faces? 😀
That happens in Seattle, too. Currently the NY-imported bigwigs are trying to figure out how to stop the private sales that happen a block away from the official “buyback”. Because we can’t have private sales, you know. (Head explodey all over the place. If only it were literal.)
Mis!!!
Mis amigos o Mis hombres o Mis Vatos.
Sorry, you Texicans should get your Spanish correct.
YEAH. >:-[
Also, WTF is “gueh”?
kudos to J for the orale, though
Huh. It appears the more popular spelling is Guey. Either way, I’m used to hearing Orale guey/gueh.
From the Spanish speaking done in Texas, which is actually a hodgepodge of English and Spanish, “Mi amigos” is commonly written on the backs of low riders.
you know, i dunno why i didn’t think about it, but i could be a pretty big hero.
i have been procrastinating about getting my ffl 03 for awhile now. gun collection was good enough, i figured.
but hey, i can save historical artifacts, and get some cool things for the colelction in the process! how cool is that?
Stopped watching the video when the guy started talking over top of the polices explanation. I’d probably agree with the video guy, but if he’s going to do arrogant shit like that he doesn’t get to keep my attention.
When they hold TOY gun buybacks that tells me loud and clear these events are more about the message than the result.
$75? Last time I heard this on the radio in DFW – it was $25.
Not to mention the basic concept has a MAJOR logical flaw: “buyback”. That suggests (strongly) that the items being “bought back” were the original property of the government to begin with. That angers me a bit.
I love what some Illinois guys did last year. They heard about a Chicago-area no-questions asked “gun buyback” and went around collecting every crappy, non-functional beat-up piece of junk useless firearm and hauled the carload across the state to the “gun buyback” which was held at several different sites during a day. They got a couple of thousand dollars of gift cards that they converted into ammo for NRA kids gun camps. And then let everyone know they did that after the fact. Some of the anti-gunners heads came near to exploding… 🙂
Actually, this sort of thing makes a direct and meaningful contribution to public safety, IMO, insofar as it gives a bunch of rabid do-gooders a relatively benign outlet for their need to Do Something For Society. There are not many things as dangerous as a frustrated Liberal …
Trying to sate a liberal’s frustration with the “imperfections” of the world is like trying to muck out the Augean stables.
Naaah. Someone actually managed to clean the Augean Stables once.
“There are not many things as dangerous as a frustrated Liberal …”
… which is why I ought to get laid more often. 🙂
By the way, is it possible to get hold of an L86A2 / L98A1 or L86A2 / L98A2 hybrid (manual or semi-auto with the heavy 646mm barrel) out there? We can’t even do a web search for gun shops’ websites here to check. If it is, I’d love to get one of those, an AR-15 and an SKS or AK-104 to a range and have a target-shooting competition. $100 of Scotch for the best shot with the British one, and suitable prizes for the others as well?
“It’s bullshit. Nothing but.”
Chapter two: Why the government gropes you in airport lines…
I am a freedom-loving Canadian. I like my guns.
I posted a Facebook pic of me firing a citizen-nerfed AR-15 (5 round clip, no auto, chambered down to a .22, in a shooting range, under the eyes of a trained shooting instructor, and an armed range master)… and that cost me my job that I had for 16 years.
Hug your gun rights. When they are gone, it is a slippery slope.
Sounds like unjustified termination to me. Or whatever might be the Canadian legal equivalent.
It is called wrongful dismissal up here. And yeah, I have that option still open to me. I saw that I wasn’t wanted, and just walked away. They came back to me begging for help, and I am roughing them up for double my old pay. 😀
Don’t burn bridges, but a bigger paycheck is always excellent revenge. 😀
here’s an article to back your arguement..
http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/node/9148
Sure it’s happened. Gotta get rid of hot guns somehow, after all, and gun-buyback is more profitable and safer than tossing it in a canal….
Now, guns that might be used for a crime in the future, that’s a different matter.