Garen Wintemute
UC Davis's Dr. Garen Wintemute (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)
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“Sacramento police want your guns in exchange for gas money,” says a May 6 Sacramento Bee headline. The department asks residents to give away their firearms, which the Second Amendment authorizes them to keep and bear, for a $50 gas gift card that would not even provide a fill-up for many vehicles. 

The department claims it will not ask any questions or demand identification, but it is unlikely that any criminals will be handing over firearms. Criminals do not follow gun laws, and criminals, not guns, commit crimes. 

“Research has shown that past gun exchanges have helped reduce the risk of gun violence among some,” the Bee claims, “according to a 1993 study done in Sacramento.” That might strike readers as a bit vague. In California, the report says, “about every 1 in 4 adults live in a gun-owning home, according to research from UC Davis.” 

That is a possible reference to the UC Davis Firearms Violence Research Center, lavishly funded by the state government but not, strictly speaking, an organ of UC Davis. The Center’s first project was a survey of “who owns guns, why they own them and how they use firearms.” The Center wants “the names,” and Californians should find that troubling.

— K. Lloyd Billingsley in Gas, Guns, and Government Lunacy – Oped

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53 COMMENTS

    • How do they define firearm? I could print out Liberators for less than a dollar each.

      Profit!

    • I’ve got a better del for them: I chewed MY poptart into the shape of a mountain. As everyone knows, mountains are FAR bigger than guns, so I’m offering a better deal for sure. Just ask the kid who chewed HIS poptart into a mountain. He is a lot smarter than his “teacher” cu HE cound tell the difference between a MOUNTAIN and a GUN. She couldn’t tell the difference.

  4. Like you can’t kill more people with 5 gallons of gas than with a gun….The gas is inherently more dangerous if misused.

    • MB, the largest mass murder in the U.S. in NYC. Weapon of choice was a small container of gas and a match.

    • Don’t worry, they want to make gasoline illegal too.

      It’s bad for the environment, dontchaknow? Millions of you plebs need to stop driving so that the important people can fly private planes.

  5. lol
    Yep, trade your thousand dollar firearm for eight or ten gallons of gas that wont even fill your tank and get shot by some lunatic holding up that gas station or trying to become the next mass shooter in the headlines.

    THIS is their type of ‘common sense’.

  6. With inflation I don’t think I could make a pipe shotgun to turn into them for that any more. :rofl:

    • In 1995 Honda introduced a model of Civic to the California Market that had a special lean-burn engine that produced no detectable emissions. The California air resources board was so incensed that they spent almost five hundred million dollars developing new equipment that could detect the emissions from the tailpipe of that car and refused to certify the car as zero emissions despite not being able to detect any emissions from it for 3 years. Other than a lack of oxygen the tailpipe emissions were cleaner than the ambient air in Los Angeles. Ford Motor Company also developed a low temperature Catalyst that they could coat radiators with that would clean the ambient air as you drove. They asked the California Air Resource Board to allow them to account for that in the vehicles total emissions output and were turned down.

      • to demonstrate how STUPID Ca;ifornia DMV employees can be… friend decided he wanted to buy a Mercedes sprinter van for his business. None to be had in Califormia. He located one in Boise Idaho, called htem, had the guy go out and verify it was California smog compliant, and had the CARB sticker for the current year. Fine. Jumped onto a plane dealer met him at the airport, geen paper was traded for white paper and keys he drove home smug smile across his mug. Got ome let some time run out on his temp permit, waited in line for quite few hours, FINALLY got to a window. Clerk: Uhhh, yu can’t won this vehicle in California. It is not equipped with the pollutioon gadgets we require. BUT IT HAS THE CARB STICKER. She would not get her wide self up off her poor suffering state funded chair and go look. NOIPE. I’m right, This was bought in Idaho yu cannot bring it into Calirornia. Since HER HIGHNESS had started thepwperwork he could not take it to any other office.. he tried. He was sentenced to deal wiht THIS dullard. Time passed, he needed to us e it for his business but could not drive it with no plates. Got notarised letters from the Idaho dealer. She was dug in. Finally getting VERY angry about the entire schemozel he began making phone calls to DMV hedquarters in Sacramento. Finally got with a man who had a brrain within his cranium. After reviewing al the papwerwork, photos of the CARB label, etc, he asked “can you meet me at the SantraRosa feild office next Thursday? YES whatever it takes. He did meet the guy. HE came out, viewed the sticker, took him back inside to a closed window, (he was there with the DMV guy) where he processed thepaperwork and gave him his temp paper plate. Friend, once it was DONE, demanded to say some things: he stated such clerks out not to be interfacing with customers/public. SHE was in the wrong from the begniing, tnere was NO way of getting past her, she refused to do her job. This ahs cost me loss of use of a vERY expensive van and a lot of even more exensive equipment inside it and lost buisnes. Because ONE stubborn snarly old woman got a burr under her saddle blankst. DMV exist not to torment we the public, but so SERVE us by processing the papers and providing licensing and registration. SHE and her stubbornness have cost ME a lot of time and lost money. This is NOT RIGHT. You FORCE us to pay a LOT of money to this agency and you treat us like THIS?? And YUO had to drive several hours from Sacramento just to deal with this one incmpetent’s work? And back?
        The Supe had to admit my friendd was right, and shen he KNEW no one ws aboe to overhear, he let my friend know that this one woman has been a pain in the department for years, and no one could figure out how to make her do her work properly or get rid of her.
        Are Tacks Dollahs Hawrdly a Werkiin.

        Gummit t its finest.
        He know my friend was right.

  8. “Sacramento police want your guns in exchange for gas money,” says a May 6 Sacramento Bee headline.”

    And by the same token perhaps the “sacramento police” should set an example and exchange their guns for gas money? If not why not?

    • The obvious answer would come from some of the TTAG contrarians in a moan that says “Govern me harder daddy!” followed by a long explanation of why voters are responsible for giving up freedom in exchange for a promise of safety.

      • ANYONE who promises ME safety is lying. NO ONE can keep me safe. It is not now and never Was nor will be the duty of government to keep ANYONE “safe”.

        That is MY work.

  9. “The Center’s first project was a survey of “who owns guns, why they own them and how they use firearms.”

    Yeah- I bet they got a lot of absolutely reliable answers to those questions from the “Average Californian”, whoever the hell that might be today…

  10. Once upon a time you could get $500. Then $200, then gift cards to supermarkets now what amounts to 8 gallons of gas in CA.

    For such an allegedly important tool in the fight to further this life and death cause they’re really not even trying anymore.

    • Well, it’s a much more efficient method of disposing of potential evidence than tossing it into a river, – it goes straight to the shredder. Plus, they’ll pay for the
      gas for the trip if you’re within 100 miles or so.

      • Lots of rivers within 100 miles or so. I’d choose that option if evidence disposal was my goal.

    • “Once upon a time you could get $500. Then $200…”

      Stagflation, brah. Even the Devil can’t afford the wages of sin any more.

    • Dunno. Sholdn’t be too hard to find out, though. Wander the streets of “certain” part os Sackamenna and you’ll learn in a short while. Let it be known you are “in the market” and you will have pleny of opportunities. I seem to remember that Brit “tourist” who held some folks hostage at gunpoint in Texas not long ago had stayed in a couple different shelters in Houston and let it be knownw he was “in the market. Seem to recall reading that he paid about $500 for that heater he used. NIce profit for the seller, who almost certainly had paid nothing for it. Hot?Yes of COURSE it was hot.

  13. I filled up earlier this morning. If they would swap a full tank, instead of a measly $50, they might be onto something. I’ve got a couple in the safe I could have made a profit on a few minutes ago.

    • My van has a 36 gallon tank. At near six bucks the gallon, that.s pushing $200 smackaronis. Of course, that will take me over five hundred miles, but after trading in a decent handgun to get only that far I’d just be glad I’m no longer able to show my face anywhere near where that deal went down.

  14. The first line brings up a question that we should probably be asking.

    “Sacramento police want your guns…”

    Is that true? Do the cops want your guns? Or is it the Police Chief, a political creature, who is pushing a silly policy? Sentence structure matters.

    If the former, what implications does that have? If the latter why are the rank and file executing such a policy and are they pushing back internally?

  15. The criminals are laughing at them. Heck, law-abiding gun owners are laughing, too. This is a sign of their desperation and impotence.

  16. I have a original Ruger LCP .380 that I’m not too fond of. Keyholes like a sumbitch. They can have it but the tank needs to be filled up…a bunch of times since I have a 24gal tank…

    • Fiddy bucks for my gat? Dang I spent that putting gasoline in my auto(mobile) yesterday. That ain’t worth a tinker’s damn(some old timey lingo)🤓

      • It’s tinker’s dam. A tinker was an itinerant repairer of pots and pans in the old days when folks repaired stuff rather than tossing it and ordering new from Costco on line or Amazon. While soldering the pot the tinker would build a small earthen dam in a nearby ditch or stream. After he was done he would destroy it so as to not cause a flood. Hence the term not worth a tinker’s dam, a temporary, jerry-built device soon destroyed or I don’t give a tinker’s dam or it aint worth a tinker’s dam.

        My Irish grandmother taught me a whole bunch of aphorisms that are no longer in common usage. To with: It’s a lay-over for meddlers and you’re the first.” Or: “Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you what you are.” Is that one ever true.

    • It appears to be a pic of the ATF website home page, possibly from March 2021, give or take.

  18. Wow, that’s gotta be almost 3 gallons over there.
    That’s a no for me, dawg.

  19. I don’t understand why gun folks get so triggered (pun intended) by these gun buybacks. If some elderly folks have a few old pot-metal shotguns in the closet, why not incentive them to get rid of them? If a young gangbanger’s mom find a pistol in their room, why not give her an avenue to safely dispose of it? The gun store doesn’t want these things and they’re a liability if they’re not properly secured anyway. Keeping guns out of the underworld market is a good thing for responsible gun owners.

    • safely dispose of it? lol

      Well, you talk like this is just some peice of trash. These things do actually have value attached to them. Even if a cheap pot-metal shotgun. Wether it’s legally owned or not doesn’t change that.

      Gun buy backs do NOT keep guns out of the underworld market. For that, they either have to be destroyed or kept at Quantico. Police storage might be acceptable but I would trust FBI lockup more. This attitude though completely ignores the fact that the issue is with criminals and their moms that condone their criminal behavior.

      I’m not going to incentivise elderly folks to turn loose of any gun simply because they are elderly. That would be stupid. They have the same rights as any 21 year old.

      • I agree. It is unfortunate, but sometimes I have seen some collectible guns that have been turned in by an unsuspecting widow who had no idea of their worth. Do you think a Browning shotgun is going in the furnace once it hits the cops’ evidence room? I know of an unsuspecting widow who sold a German Lugar to a gun dealer. She had the provenance letter from his CO authorizing him to bring the Lugar back from WWI. I didn’t know what kind of shape it was in but I told her I would give her $400 for it sight unseen. Or, if she wished, I would sell it to an honest gun dealer or on line and if it sold for more, I would split the difference with her. She demurred stating she had already promised it to him and wouldn’t go back on her word. To bad she was far more honorable than the dealer. I made it a point to myself to avoid frequenting that gun dealer in the future. I hate it when somebody takes obvious advantage of someone because the person was ignorant of the value of the item.

    • “pot metal shotgun”? ON what planet to YOU steal oxygen?
      Pot metal is too brittle to hold up under the brrel pressure developed by the shell. Try a piece of EMT conduit instead…. goofball.

  20. Excuse me while I laugh out loud. If I have a pistol that costs upwards to $8-900.00, does California think I will be stupid enough to let them have that pistol for a $50.00 gasoline card. To those who do, I say, “Dream on!, and perhaps I’ll be willing to sell you some ocean front property in Montana,” Makes me wonder what the education level is in California!

    • Well, I have a Rhom in .22 short that does function, sort of. A guy wanted $10 for it and I told him it wasn’t worth $10. He then gave it to me because he didn’t want it. Unfortunately Schitzamento is too far. Cost more than $50 in gas just to get there let alone drive back. As somebody else pointed out, one can really see the value in these buy backs. Prices have dropped form $300 cash money to a $50 gas gift card. Some real motivating thinking there Schitzo P.D.

  23. 10 gallons of gas here for anything in the safe? Sorry kiddies, that’s a big no.
    I’ve seen what usually ends up being turned in on these gun buyback dog and pony shows. Rusted up, or damaged junk, or some old Saturday Night Specials dug out of someone’s junk box in the attic or basement. Those cheap, might fire or might detonate in your hand, made in the Philippines crap. Seldom anything anyone would try to actually use.

  24. Hell, right now in California, $50 worth of gas probably wouldn’t cover the round trip by car to the exchange location.

  25. I’m all for this. Anyone stupid enough to take advantage of it is too stupid to be a gun owner. Everyone wins.
    I have an old CZ52 that exploded into about three pieces. I wonder if I can get $50 for that?

    • That is exactly how to get rid of guns like your CZ52 and any other junkers you have on hand.
      They get their numbers up and you sell your worthless junk.

  27. Then you can throw quarters at the carjackers and thugs trying to rob you or worse!

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