A recent gun turn-in event at a church in Dallas shows how effective private purchasers can be at neutralizing the “guns are bad” meme.  From the story:

“Now there’s 15 less chances there’s a tragedy, and we’re glad for that,” said the Rev. Bruce Buchanan, an associate pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Dallas, which has The Stewpot ministry.

This is the usual theme of gun turn-in programs. Guns are bad and should be destroyed. However, as is happening all over the country, in the vast majority of states where private sales are not infringed by law, there were private purchasers who brought the opposite message to the attention of readers . . .

As the church worked to buy guns so they could be destroyed, members of the Come and Take It Texas gun-rights group tried to buy firearms at the same site — so they could be put back into circulation.

The group said it bought four or five guns in its effort to supply firearms to the Safe Mother program, geared toward training women in need to use handguns for self-defense.

Not only are private purchasers attending these events, but they are getting organized. Come and Take It has held a number of high profile events in Texas.

I find the reference to arming poor mothers for self defense to be particularly effective. While not a direct reference to the Armed Citizens Project, it seems they share the same goal: arm citizens, reduced crime.

These boondoggles are net losers for those who wish to disarm the general population, and they know it. Now, as a seattlepi.com article reveals, their desperate attempts to conceal that fact will cost the city of Seattle $38,000. Here’s examiner.com’s description of one of the emails (this one from Washington CeaseFire’s Ralph Fascitelli to a member of Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn’s staff) that the city was so shy about revealing:

“I wish you guys would … have talked to us/CeaseFire about this before moving forward. The overwhelming research shows that buybacks generally don’t work well and are a waste of resources and are mocked by the NRA.

“We will be lucky to get a few thousand or more guns back,” Fascitelli cautioned, “many of which don’t work too well in a country where there are almost 2 million guns.” Fascitelli also reportedly criticized buyback supporters for doing “kneejerk standalone stuff.”

Of course, this doesn’t stop the anti-freedom activists from holding turn-in events in states where private sales are restricted such as the recent one in California that netted an an STG-44. It’s just another reason to oppose the road to registration that anti-freedom activists like to call “universal background checks“.

©2013 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
Gun Watch

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38 COMMENTS

  1. “in a country where there are almost 2 million guns.”

    Perhaps he meant “county?” I seriously doubt those 88 million some odd gun owners are sharing most of the guns.

    • Last i checked there were like 270 million civilian owned firearms…. 90 per 100 people in the us…. Of which less than 1% are used in crime a year… Aparrently guns aren’t all that bad. Lol

      • Approximately 0.01% to 0.02% of guns are used in crimes each year (murder & suicide, anyway).

        A “buyback” would have to recover between 5,000 and 10,000 guns to prevent ONE crime.

        • That’s making a bunch of illogical assumptions. To stop a crime one must assume that a currently active criminal would decide to sell his only means to commit a crime with no means to replace it and decide not to commit further crimes because of that. It dose not work if the guy either decided not to commit crimes any more then unloaded the weapon, used the funds from the turn in to buy another weapon or decided to peruse criminal activities without a gun.

  2. I hope they don’t stop. I’m still dreaming of being able to pick up some WWII history at one of these buy-backs. Never mind that I just got handed someones old, rusty .22 project rifle. Not usefully for much more than a club or conversation piece. But a great buy back gun.

  3. They’re on to us!

    Damn shame, too. I was really hoping to go to one of these and score a Garand now that CMP is drying up/ expensive.

  4. “many of which don’t work too well in a country where there are almost 2 million guns.”

    Try 200 million.

      • I think TTAG should have regional get togethers. From what I can tell, there are a lot of Northwest based readers and at least a couple Northwest based writers, so the numbers are available anyway.

    • Try 300 million at least. And the factories are working overtime to keep up with demand.

      In the time it takes to round up 20 busted junk guns in a buy back I wonder how many new guns are being manufactored by Glock, S&W, Ruger etc.?

      Fucking retards.

      • Ruger, by themselves, sells an average of 3,400 firearms each and every day.

        Based on the fact that they sold 1,253,700 firearms between 4/1/2011 and 3/31/2012. It is likely even higher than that now.

        So they effectively negated 8.4 minutes of Ruger’s production.

        Across all manufacturers, I’d guess those buyback guns were replenished in approximately 15 seconds.

        • It’s even worse than they realize, the firearms they produce are actually working. The ones they buy back program bought, for the most part, don’t. And if you look at the stuff they buy back, it’s mostly rifles. Bolt action at that. They save all the good stuff for a static display and the media spread but the vast majority of stuff they buy are rifles, the kind least likely to be used in a crime.

  6. “Now there’s 15 less chances there’s a tragedy,”

    I guess statistics and probability are not this guys strong point. At least he only had to take one shoe off to keep count of the guns.

  7. Is there a site that lists all planned gun buybacks in the country? I want cash in on some Liberators and BB guns.

  8. I wonder if someone could make a living turning in liberators, zip guns, and Luty derivatives sans bolt. Turn in 10 $20 guns, for $200 a pop, and you have yourself a tidy little nest egg. Or, 3d print a dozen of the AR 15 lowers, at 75% infill, and with the cheapest material you can find. The lower is the gun, after all, and what do you care if they don’t work?

    • They used to give cash at these buy backs. That’s how I got enough for an SKS. But nowadays they hand out gift cards and junk like that.

      • $200 in Raylee’s gift cards frees us $200 in food money to buy guns with. $200 in Wal Mart gift cards? Well, Wally World carries ammo.

      • But not the promise to never face charges related to any crimes the gun may have been involved in. I wonder how many high points and other sub $200 guns get turned in? My former supervisor scored a .380 HP for $70 a while ago nib. That’s $130 profit! That’s most of the way to a .22 bolty from Cabelas used gun rack!

  10. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I have come up with another angle to consider. Politics is about money. If these anti-second amendment dweebs are throwing money at buying firearms from people who are usually Progressives or Democrats, it means there is less money they can throw at buying votes and politicians, and it also means that there are less Democrats and Progressives with guns. It might not be that bad to let them do it from time to time.

  13. That man is either crazy or mentally deficient. An SKS is worth far more than those bozos are paying. Unless he is legally disqualified from owning a firearm, the SKS should form the cornerstone of his collection. Most fun for buck around.

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