As you may have read in our earlier post today, the reaction to Guns Safe Life’s Chicago gun buyback windfall – they turned in a bunch of broken-ass junk and raised over six grand to fund an NRA shooting camp for kids – hasn’t been entirely positive. Some people in the gun-free paradise on Lake Michigan have taken exception to GSL’s inventiveness. To wit, GSL honcho John Boch got an angry missive from one such Chicagoan, Holly B. We don’t have permission to re-print her email, but as she wrote, she’s so angry she can’t see straight and can’t figure out how the GSL folks can sleep at night. We’re pretty sure they’re snoozing like babies these days in the knowledge that this summer’s shooting camp is fully funded. We do have permission to print John’s reply, though. Make the jump for his retort . . .

Holly,
I’m so sorry you are disgusted by our most recent trip up to the Windy City to take advantage of your city’s program to “buy back,” something the city never owned in the first place.

Apparently you read about it in today’s Tribune…

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-gun-buyback-backfire-0702-20120702,0,6431615.story

Yes, we gleefully traded rusted clunkers like these (photo attached) for perfectly good cash in this artificial market your city’s leaders created.

Yes, some of the guns, as you can see, were literally held together with duct tape or electrical tape.  While a few would actually fire, many of those would pose as much of a danger to the shooter as anyone down range.

We’re using the money to educate the next generation of gun owners in responsible firearm ownership.  We buy ammunition to teach them to shoot (and potentially, so they may save innocent life from predatory criminal attack later in their lives) and then give a few lucky winners firearms with which they can continue to grow as firearm owners.

With decisions come consequences.  You and those like you in Chicago have chosen to ignore the role of firearms in deterring violent crime.  You reap the consequences of that decision each day.

I will muse that if Chicago’s leaders spent less money paying criminals to “prevent” crime (kind of like paying tribute to the Barbary pirates or paying mob enforcers to avoid being victimized) and sponsoring feel-good efforts like this guy buy back, and instead simply got out of the way and allowed law-abiding FOID-card holders to possess firearms kind of like we do in the rest of the state, your crime rate would be substantially lower.

Instead, you advocate disarming victims.  You seem utterly clueless of the relationship between your city’s Draconian firearm laws and its utterly appalling rate of violent crime you yourself lament.

You deserve your city’s leadership and the environment they’ve helped create and foster.

You have helped make your bed. Enjoy sleeping in it, Miss Bergren.

I look forward to publishing your screed in next month’s issue of GunNews.

John

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43 COMMENTS

  2. I actually wish there was some way I could donate a couple clunker guns to GSL next time Chicago has a buy back. But I live in Indiana, so, any way around the red tape? Two rifles both broken and old, off brand, cheapie type .22 lr’s.
    I might contact GSL to see if they want to take broken donations.

    This Holly chick has her jimmies ALL rustled.

  4. That response was so perfect. All they left out was an invitation to Holly (after she calms down) to join them for a day of learning about safe and responsible firearm handling and shooting.

    • I agree, Aharon. I am afraid though the Kool-Aid those folks drink does something to the synapses in their brains so that the words ‘gun’, ‘pistol’, ‘revolver’, ‘rifle’, ‘shotgun’ etc, have only one possible resulting thought;
      ‘GUNS BAD’.

      • In my experience, even the most ardent anti-gun person gets big smiles and really enjoys shooting if they bother to try it. But then they’ll still say that guns should still be banned, even though they can be trusted with a gun, they insist that others can’t.

  5. The funniest bit is that they really can’t do much to prevent future such efforts, due to the “no questions asked” policy. They could require that all firearms be in “apparently working condition” or some such, but that’s about it.

  9. Shoulda sent her a pic of that poor old woman that got beaten last week, that woulda shut Miss Bergren Up.

  10. If the Chicago Buy-Back gang declares that all firearms be in “apparently working condition” then “working condition single-shot capacity legit cheapo guns hand-assembled made-in-your-local-Illinois-basement” need to be sold to the popo for $100.

  11. watch next year they (chicago) will change the rules to follow….and once again you guys will prevail…bravo !!!

  12. The only bit that I would have added is if she would really believe that criminals would show up to an event where they can be seen and ID’d by cops. While it may be a “no questions asked policy”, pretty sure someone is staking out the place and taking pictures as well.

    Also, isn’t this guy buy back policy a perfect oppurtunity for some criminals to legally get rid of evidence that may have been used in a crime thus the police would never find the proverbial smoking gun?

    And, one last thing, all they money they spent on cops etc. to hold that even could have been spent to send city kinds to some 4H camps instead of staying in the city all summer long.

    Again, emotions over facts

  13. Is that her photo at the top or is that one of the ” rusted clunkers like these (photo attached)”??

  14. Good golly, Miss Holly sure likes to bawl. BTW, she’s a real estate broker — a profession with a level of ethics rivaled only by used car salesmen and politicians.

  16. While it’s a very good reply, it assumes that people like Holly are intellectual and emotional adults, which they’re not. Her and her ilk are children, and don’t deserve the time and effort it takes to craft a response meant for adults. Shes not going to look at this and change her mind, or give serious thought to the facts. That’s like assuming a child will stop throwing a tantrum and seriously reflect on why she’s grounded, and seek to change her attitude as such.

    I applaud gun owners who try to educate antis and relate to them on an equal intellectual level, but it’s wasted effort. You have to realize that their stances are never based on fact or logic, but rather lies and damaged emotions. No amount of mature reasoning will ever break through that.

    Treat them like the insects they are. They’re drones being used by politicians to support their own unjust oppression. You don’t reason with a drone bee to prevent it from stinging you…you crush it.

    People on the fence are another matter; they at least show a bit of intellectual fortitude for standing against the waves of anti brainwashing. But pathetic beings like Holly don’t deserve the mouse click it took to send that response. Like the response said, they deserve every bit of misery they bring on themselves.

    • Sadly Silver, you’re right. One cannot have an intellectually honest discussion of facts with someone on a perpetual emotional hissy fit.

  17. Love it. The whole episode shows a perfect blend of creativeness, irony, and in-your-face illustration of unintended consequences. My admiration and praise to Guns Save Life. Nothing like using their own idiocy against the useful idiots of the anti-freedom groups.
    “Irony is the axis of the universe.”

  18. John Boch was on WLS 890 (Chicago) this am and made me smile like I have not for a while. His sarcasm and in your face attitude to the mess that is Chicago is refreshing.

  19. The really frustrating part is how do they prevent this without upsetting the entire program? They brag about the large number of guns taken in, so they need those numbers.

  20. They could’ve avoided this whole mess by requiring anyone who shows up at these buybacks to be criminals.

  21. We have this whole problem backward gentlemen.

    The “armed intelligentsia” look at Rahm Emmanuel’s defiance of court rulings and wonder logically why he continues to advance failed gun control policy. The answer is Holly Bergren , and her millions of friends in Illinois. Crooked politicians like Emmanuel are not the disease, but a symptom. The source of the anti gun law problem is millions of people who genuinely rise in the morning and sleep at night believing firearms are a social ill. So long as such people populate this nation Brady allies like Emmanuel will be elected repetitively.When the current generation dies or retires new anti-gun elected leaders will rise to continue the accursed legacy.

    To protect the 2nd Amendment today and in the years to come, we cannot rely on courts and legislative resolutions alone. We must unplug the Holly Bergren’s from the deceiving Matrix of Democrat party dogma demonizing guns-and before anyone chimes in that its impossible, its not, because ive changed some anti’s minds myself. Instead of trying to change a Democrat to a Republican , perhaps we should just focus on getting the gun in their hands and letting the rest happen naturally.

    • perhaps we should just focus on getting the gun in their hands and letting the rest happen naturally

      You might as well try to teach a rabbi to eat pork.

      • When facing starvation, I think it is acceptable for a Kosher-keeping Rabbi or Jew to eat pork vs. dying. Therefore, if you can find one in a starvation scenario it should happen. Now, if you can do that to a Kosher eating Jew you might be able to socially engineer a survival situation with an anti-gunner where they become very willing to pick-up a gun. I have faith in you Ralph.

        • I would love to socially engineer a survival situation with an anti-gunner where they become very willing to pick-up a gun. And then — f^ck ’em — I wouldn’t give ’em a gun.

        • I love that bit of the last scene in Rambo 4 where the “violence is always wrong” holier-than-thou guy is forced to bludgeon an enemy soldier to death with a rock to survive.

  23. That dude literally has balls of steel, huge massive swinging balls that clink when he walks.

  24. John made an absolutely great reply to Ms. Bergren’s letter. Is there any nectar as sweet as the tears of a clueless “progressive”.

  25. I can’t help to think that, of all the places I’ve visited or lived–including ones which have a reputation of being pretty unsafe–the only time I’ve ever looked down the wrong end of a gun was in Chicago.

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