3.7 "Gun buy-backs are an effective way to get guns off the street."
Description
This article is from the talk.politics.guns Official Pro-Gun FAQ, by Ken Barnes (kebarnes@cc.memphis.edu) with numerous contributions by others.
3.7 "Gun buy-backs are an effective way to get guns off the street."
See LaPierre,"Guns, Crime and Freedom,"where he devotes an entire
chapter (Chapter 8) to this.
In summary: Gun buy-backs, or "guns-for-cash" programs, in which
police departments or businesses pay a small amount of cash or
merchandise for any gun which is turned in for destruction, have
gotten an enthusiastic response in many cities, and have succeeded
in getting large numbers of guns "off the street". But what kind
of guns? For the most part, these programs act as an economic
incentive to dump old, obsolete, unsaleable (and in some cases
even non-functional) guns which are less valuable than the reward
being offered. Many of these programs are set up to accept guns
with "no questions asked" and full anonymity for the person who
turns in a gun, and can be used by criminals to dispose of illegal
firearms (like unregistered sawed-off shotguns) and/or guns which
have been used in crimes (thus destroying potential evidence).
More valuable modern or antique firearms have plenty of buyers,
and sometimes, collectors (or even criminals looking for a bargain),
have attempted to buy the more valuable weapons from people waiting
in line to sell their guns at a buy-back, offering to pay a higher
price than the buy-back is offering. Some people may have inherited
a gun, or have an old war relic in their attic which they don't know
the value of, and they may have no desire to keep the gun, so when
the buy-back is announced, it sounds like a good deal. Thieves may
steal a gun and take it to the buy-back for some quick "no questions
asked" cash. And even the people responsible for destroying the
collected guns have on occasion been known to pocket some of the
better ones, either for their own use, or for later sale. Gun buy-
backs have little chance of disarming serious criminals, since_they"
know how valuable their weapons are, both as tools of their trade,
and as a medium of exchange (see 3.5).
Recently, another form of "buy back" has begun to be used as a
substitute for house-to-house gun confiscation in the United Kingdom
and Australia. While called a "buy back," the compulsory nature
of these programmes shows that they are really nothing more than an
initially less obtrusive means of confiscation, to be followed by
harsher measures once the majority of gun owners have been disarmed
(see Appendix III).
Continue to:
My Books
