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Gun buybacks are nothing more than feel-good kabuki theater that let left-leaning pols and their pals pretend they’re doing something about “gun violence.” It’s a ridiculous waste of time and resources that promotes the gun grabbing gestalt (i.e. guns are bad). Even usatoday.com is starting to see sense on this silliness. These days, private buyers latch onto gun buybacks like pilot fish shadowing sharks. Which annoys civilian disarmament cheerleaders no end. Police Gun Buyback program a success despite competition cleveland.com petulantly proclaims—as if people who rescue guns from the smelter are hampering high-minded efforts to destroy them. Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGrath gave voice to the sentiment . . .

Here we are trying to save lives, and they’re right in our face, trying to buy guns cheap so they can sell them for a profit.

Huh? What about this then?

Anyone turning in a working handgun received a $100 gift card for gas from Shell; food from Dave’s or merchandise from Target. They also were given two tickets to a Cavaliers and Lake Erie Monsters game. Semi-automatic rifles were worth $200 in gifts. Participants also were entered in a raffle to win up to $1,000.

I reckon people turning in guns are motivated by profit as well. Would there be a line of people with broken-ass firearms waiting for their suck on the taxpayer tit if they weren’t? In fact, given the program’s standard-issue “no questions asked” policy for contributors to the cause, it’s entirely possible someone bought/stole a gun for “free” tickets to a Cavs game.

Who’s the evil gun buyer now, eh Mr. Bond? Who’s enabling the evil gun buyer? And here’s a twist on the “if it saves one child meme” (e.g., “‘I know we saved at least one person’s life today,’ said Morris, a police spokesperson”):

In some cases, police said, it means saving people from hurting themselves.

An officer brought over a bullet that had been lodged in the barrel of a gun that was handed in. He said if the owner had fired the weapon, it would have blown up in his face.

Would or could? Fear and greed for fun and profit. Your tax money hard at work. Or not.

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36 COMMENTS

  1. Don’t you know, only they can decide what is greed and what is ok. We, the great unwashed masses, should be thankful that they exist, to save our lives. We shouldn’t question. We should just be grateful that the anti-rights crowd is there for us. Our own SS Guardian Angels, you might say. All I want to know is what I did to be eligible to receive all these blessings. Just “borrow” a gun from some evil gun owner, and I can see a Cavs game..
    Yay..enough sarcasm.
    Living in a free state, there are not many buy backs around. If there were, I would be there with cash in hand, ready to expand my collection.

  2. The folks who sell their guns back are definitely not the same type of people who might use them in an anti-social way, and are the people who probably most need to have them around in the first place, for purposes of self-defense. Furthermore, the guns traded in are never “criminally desirable,” so any arguments that these “dangerous weapons” could be stolen and used by a criminal are moot. I hear about a lot of thugs packing modern semi-auto pistols; I never hear about robberies, muggings, and gang shootings committed with Grandpa’s single-shot 20ga, bolt-action hunting rifles, or some old .32 revolver. And I never hear about how the latest gun-buyback netted a hundred Glocks or AR-15s…. to say the least.

    They’re stupid feel-good programs which do nothing except further propagandize average Joe into believing that guns are evil, scary, dangerous, and should be turned in to Big Brother for a pat on the head.

    • While they smile and wag tails. I’m telling you, you could convince the majority of these ever- dozing sheeple to jump off a ship in the middle of Lake Erie (in March) in a “swim for sensible gun laws!”

      “I didn’t need it anymore because Obama protect me!” The utter lunacy of normalcy bias!

      Another thing, for anyone who lives in the area: what is that Art Deco skyscraper in the far background?

  3. Anyone live in Cleveland? We need to start embarrassing and shaming these people. A local needs to walk up to that SGT with a video camera and just start laughing at him. Tell him why he is such a tool/moron/political hack…..then post it on the internet. Harass these a$$hats until their embarrassed to open their damn mouths in public.

    Welcome to the internet.

  5. I was going to go to this buyback, but I have a midterm tomorrow so I opted for studying instead 🙁

  6. “Cleveland Police Sgt. Sammy Morris picked up a rifle, looked it over, and said it could easily be modified into a fully automatic weapon that’s ‘only good for killing people. It would cut them in half.'”

    I lack adequate words to describe what I think of this sentence, so I’ll just leave this here: &#*^#@%#$!

    • Cleveland SWAT has fully automatic weapons, such as MP5s. I suppose when they deploy with them that’s prima facie evidence of intent to murder?

  7. Local civic groups should hold Police Gun Buybacks. Any cop that turns in his gun would get an extra month’s credit toward his pension, a get-out-of-jail-free card for when he’s caught doodling a hooker on the job (his, not hers) and a ticket to a Beyonce concert. It’s worth it if it saves just one innocent bystander.

  8. I wonder if I can get enough capital for my own gun buy back program in a lib city. I’ve seen some gems show up at those things and I am almost guaranteed to be able to turn any handgun and rifle back over $100 and $200 respectively.

    Yeah this sounds good.

  9. “An officer brought over a bullet that had been lodged in the barrel of a gun that was handed in. He said if the owner had fired the weapon, it would have blown up in his face. ”

    I expect that’s why it was turned in. 😉

  10. I don’t get the “back” part – if these things are so dangerous, why did the Cleveland police sell them to the public in the first place? $100 bucks? Any decent gun would fetch more from a gun store. Basically, they will just take in junk out of people’s basements.

  11. One Reddit user saved a Colt Python from the smelter at this buyback. Got it for $150. The thing is a piece of art and would have been melted down to a peace brick or ended up in the safe of one of these officers.

  13. “”I’m here to save perfectly good guns from being melted down,’ commented a man who said he was from Canton, and called himself Gabe.”

    This guy isn’t helping the cause. We are talking about pieces of metal and machinery. “Gabe” is acting like guns are thrown into the furnace, kicking and screaming.

    We are often told that guns are “just a tool.” Well, I’d imagine that if this were a screwdriver buyback program this guy wouldn’t have made the hour drive from Canton to Cleveland to save the screwdrivers from molten death. If they are “just a tool,” than why get worked up about it?

    And finally, who cares what the people of Cleveland do? Gun owners aren’t forced to turn in their weapons and if local companies want to contribute and the police feel it is a good use of their time and money then why not? I don’t see why this concerns Gabe or anyone else outside of Cleveland.

    • They’re tools, but they’re pricey tools, and many of them cross the line between tool and art. If screwdrivers were being turned in and melted down, and had a value 2-15x what was being offered to ignorant sellers by the government, I bet you’d suddenly be very interested in rescuing screwdrivers, too.

    • “We are often told that guns are “just a tool.” Well, I’d imagine that if this were a screwdriver buyback program this guy wouldn’t have made the hour drive from Canton to Cleveland to save the screwdrivers from molten death. If they are “just a tool,” than why get worked up about it?”

      The Grabbers aren’t advocating registering screwdrivers here. The Constitution doesn’t even guarantee the right to possess one!

      But they are threatening to flout the Constitution of the United States by imposing gun control, and that is something up with which we must not put!

    • Nordic, did you not read the article?

      “It’s a ridiculous waste of time and resources that promotes the gun grabbing gestalt (i.e. guns are bad).”

    • This is a post from a man with no appreciation for tools. If the police were suddenly having a “buy back” of old tools, lots of guys would go to scrounge for old Craftsmans, Belknap/Bluegrass, Klein, and any number of other brands among the useless junk turned in. And do you know why they’d do it? Because those tools are worth something. More importantly, it’s worth something that society knows the value of work, and the veneration of the men who are responsible for building what we now take for granted. As tools, guns fall into the same category and deserve to be saved from waste for the same reasons: they are still useful and they are a part of the history of honorable lives in an honorable society.

      Do you get bored at museums?

  16. And I always thought “no-questions” buy-backs are the perfect opportunity to get rid of a gun used in a crime. Bonus points if the gun is destroyed along with any evidence.

  18. Damnit, I have an old piece of crap Jennings 380 I would have liked to get a $100 gas card for!

  19. “An officer brought over a bullet that had been lodged in the barrel of a gun that was handed in. He said if the owner had fired the weapon, it would have blown up in his face.”

    Is that because barely anyone turns in anything in good working order at these gun buy backs?

  20. stop it! dammit. I have a few old pieces of crap Ring of Fire weapons I need to get rid of, and while I am there, I am going to “buy back” a few myself.

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