Image by Boch. Base image by Bloomington, IL Police (via Facebook).

Trick or treat, smell their feet cash. The Bloomington, Illinois Police Department will be hosting a “gun buyback” this Sunday, October 29th. They’re seeking “unwanted” or unloved guns and they’re paying a premium price for them.

After a call to the Bloomington PD this morning, I learned they’re paying $200 for rifles, shotguns, and handguns. Wait, it gets a lot better. They’re paying $400 for ‘unwanted’ ghost guns. And they’re paying $500 for unwanted “assault” guns.

My question is this: Is their definition of “assault” guns the same as in the PICA gun & magazine ban law?

Either way, it seems incumbent upon us to help them make this buyback a BIG success.

Do you have any unwanted, non-functioning, or barely functioning firearms? Do you have any antiques that you have no use for? Or even modern guns like the KelTec P3AT, the Ruger LCP or worse yet, a Taurus Curve that are effectively obsolete and nearly worthless?  Here’s your chance to sell them to some do-gooders for a fair amount of perfectly good cash.

What we don’t want to see are cash-strapped people turning in their home defense firearms for Christmas money. If they do that, someday they might relate to the Guns Save Life highway sign set that reads: DIALED 911…AND I’M ON HOLD…SURE WISH I HAD…THAT GUN I SOLD…GunsSaveLife.com.

Utah Salt Lake gun buyback buy back
A Salt Lake City Policeman examines a gun during a buyback. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

I’d recommend getting there around 9am or so (the location is 2602 Six Points Road in Bloomington). There will be a line. There always is. And given the prices they’re paying, they’ll be out of cash within the first half-hour or so. Guaranteed.

More at their Facebook page…

Got Guns?

I serve as the Executive Director, Chief Bottle Washer, and occasional gun scrubber at Guns Save Life in Illinois and we love gun buybacks. Guns Save Life has quite a reputation for nailing gun buybacks many times over the years (see here, here, and here). We even collected about $6500 for youth shooting programs, courtesy of the city of Chicago about ten years ago. That led to some international publicity and a shutdown of that program for two or three years.

However, we likely won’t be participating in this one because yours truly is all out of clunkers.

While we’re running on empty, if any of TTAG’s dear readers would like to take your broken-down stuff out to the fire station on Six Points Road and deliver them to the do-gooders, have at it.

Then if you want to donate those funds to GSL for use in our youth shooting programs across Illinois, we at Guns Save Life will happily accept the cash and/or pre-paid gift cards. Heaven knows there are countless worthy school clays programs, Pheasants Forever Young Guns programs and youth shooting camps across the state that could use a few hundred (or thousand) bucks for practice ammo.

Guns Save Life kids camp shooting program NRA
Image by Boch
Image by Boch

We don’t want you to drop off your guns with us and I’ll tell you why . . .

We’ve already been targeted by overzealous law enforcement officers trying to lure us into ignoring waiting periods and proper protocols for private transfers of firearms in our state. They wanted to drop off “close to a dozen” guns for our next buyback adventure. I suspect they would have then returned, along with friends carrying flashbangs, a battering ram for my front door, and a shiny set of handcuffs.

Why aren’t those cops out there busting gang bangers carrying full-auto GLOCKs? I don’t know. Maybe that’s more dangerous than trying to bait a CCW holder and leader of a gun rights org into violating Illinois’ incredibly restrictive gun control laws.

Kids guns save life shooting camp program
Image by Boch

Remember, the fun starts at 10am. Good luck.

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22 COMMENTS

  2. Any interest in plastic, 3D-printed guns? I’ve heard stories of some guy printing a box of these over a weekend and then making a small fortune selling them to the no-questions-asked buyback program.

    • You beat me to it. I was thinking about investing in a 3D printed machine. So I can make thousands of dollars on these gun turn ins.
      big(smile)

      I could use the money to pay for a trip to Thunder Ranch or Gunsite.

  3. 146mi. from me doorstep. rode it many times when the stawberry blonde was in watterson towers.
    couple bills would more than pay for gas and biscuit gravy.

    • Yeah it’s close to that for me. Did 3rd Sunday antique market in Bloomington in the 90’s. And my eldest son graduated from college there & married a gal nearby. I wish I had something to get rid of. I’d need a grand for my S&W Sport🙄🤓

  4. I’d have to drive to the gunmshop I bought my gunm from and see if he wants to buy it back.
    Where do these cities get the idea they are buying back my gunms.
    Is there something I dont Know?

    • Some of your gunms I want to buy back, others not so much.
      Those run over by F150’s are salvageable…those hit by F350’s not so much.

  6. what about home made slam fire shotty? should be able to make a few from a couple sticks of black pipe

  8. Whats wrong with an LCP? I’ve carried one for years with no problemo. Current value on a new one is over 200 smackers.

  9. It’s about $25 and 30 minutes to make a slam fire shotgun, ghost gun. At $400 each I’d have a lot made if I lived a few thousand miles closer.

    Or copy the young guy who got over $10 000 for his 3D printed “guns”

  10. y’all know if you are caught transporting to the buy back or carrying to turn in at the buy back or turning in at the buy back one of those ‘banned guns’ you can be arrested… y’all know that, right?

  11. There was a limit of four guns. We arrived about 8:30 AM about 5 cars behind JB. We did not get out there until almost 1PM. Anyone who arrived at the posted starting time (10AM) most likely received no money. Supposedly they had $50K to spend and told us they had already given out $30K when they started looking at ours.

    What a waste of taxpayer resources.

Comments are closed.