Bent Smith (courtesy Reuters)

I detest gun buybacks. Not only are they anti-gun agitprop—security theater for politically correct politicians bent on civilian disarmament—but they destroy tens of thousands of perfectly good guns at taxpayers’ expense (even when we’re “just” paying for police overtime and adding to their po-po’s pension payout). foxnews.com used this image above their story Colorado recall vote on gun control without mail ballots changes dynamic. The caption reads “FILE: July 30, 2013: A deputy sheriff looks at a disabled gun to be melted down at a gun buy-back program in Los Angeles, Calif. (REUTERS).” Which kinda implies the sheriff’s department “disabled” this revolver pre-melt down. What kind of animal would do that to a [now identified as a Rossi] wheelgun ?  [NB: I refuse to accept the possibility that a gun owner abused this piece ahead of its untimely end.] It just goes to show you that the people running gun buybacks have no respect for history, art or Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. As if you didn’t know.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

62 COMMENTS

    • Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world’s first bionic gun. This survivor will be that gun. Better than it was before. Better, stronger, faster.

    • That’s right she fixable but I’m no gunsmith. But? Check the frame and other components for true. Slap a new barrel on her. Then Function test and the test fire on a bad guy buy a bad guy, any death row volunteers?

  3. The only thing disabled on it is the accuracy. It’s still very much an implement of death in that configuration.

    One wonders why animal shelters don’t kill your unwanted animals on the spot right in front of you. These guns were very adoptable and could have found loving homes.

    • Not if it pinched the barrel, then it’s an instrument of finger-blowing-offing for whoever tries to use it.

      Either way, it’s a got-danged tragedy to me.

        • Sat on it. Poor thing, it was just a baby. It had a full life ahead of it, snuffed out by too many jelly donuts. Speaking of which, do you know why there are so many cops lurking arround construction zones? The signs says Donot pass. Bad, I know, but the day is young.

  5. Envious of it’s barrel length, no doubt. It disturbs me also to see a Webley or other historic firearm for sale in england that has been “de-activated” murder, I call it.

      • Christ! In Phoenix?!? Any dealer would have given the moron ten times that in a heartbeat!

        That’s just wrong.

        • At the first Phoenix turn in this May, I went in to ask some questions about procedure, and I wanted to take some picutures. An older lady walked in with me, grocerly type bag in hand. I asked her what she was turning in. She said that her husband had been in WWII, and that he had a handgun that he had carried with him when they were in the desert, and that he had used it to defend them (at least once), but now he had passed and she just wanted to get rid of it.

          I managed to get a quick look in the bag before we got to the official turn in table. All I could see was a WWII German type holster. At the table I asked to take pictures. Denied. I asked to see what she was turning in. The police officer asked me to leave. I told the widow that her pistol was probably worth at least $400. She did not care.

          She just wanted to “get rid of it”, and she did not want to sell it, she wanted to turn it in to be destroyed.

          I never did find out what was in the holster. Could have been a Luger, could have been a Lahti or one of the medium sized Mausers (not a broomhandle), possibly a P38…

          On the second turn in, I saw an actual Luger and original holster turned in. Sad. I did take pictures of that one.. even the serial number.

          I wrote it all up on the series of articles I did on the three turn in events at Gun Watch.

          http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2013/05/azphoenix-early-gun-turn-in-buyback.html

        • Dean, I just read your posts about the Phoenix buybacks, and then I had to go take my dog for a walk to remember that there are still good things in this world, because the pictures made me sad.

      • Dean, whoever got that Colt Delta 10mm got a GREAT deal.

        FWIW, if you know the person, advise them to keep to the “FBI loads” which are lighter. People who went full-bore 10mm in those Delta Elites found their frames started to develop cracks after awhile.

        An uncracked Colt Delta Elite is going to be worth some serious money someday.

  8. Maybe, just maybe, it’s the revolver Frank Castle tried to use on The Russian in the ’04 Punisher flick. That’s the only explanation that makes any sense to me.

    • IIRC, frank’s backup wheelgun was a more of a 4″ barrel, and I think had a black grip.
      Here’s hoping this one was some sort of tragic accident involving a tow truck and some hydraulics.

  11. Taking a SWAG here that the revolver was worth more than a grocery store gift card
    Can’t fix stupid

  12. I wonder if some moron did manage to do this to his own gun in some sort of meth-fueled amateur gunsmithing episode (dude, you use the torch to, like, adjust the barrel for accuracy), then figured he might as well cash in on the buyback.

  14. I feel like setting up a booth in front of every gun buyback and handing out pamphlets. “It’s not a choice, it’s a firearm.” “You can shoot it, we can help.”

  17. That photo makes me sad.

    Send it to Dyspeptic Gunsmith and have him cut and recrown it into a 2″ barrel blaster? Oh the sound we can make!

    • Looking at it as closely as I can, I think the barrel is a complete loss. The frame, from what I see in the picture, might well be OK.

      • Maybe.

        Depends on where they gripped it to get the leverage. And after that, I’m not sure I’d ever really trust it again. Not its fault, but still.

        • From the dimple, I’d say they stuck it in a REBAR bender and tugged on the lever.

          Easy way to destroy anything, even a shottie.

          The frame should be fine.

  18. Why don’t the blue states offer gun buy back and then allow the red states to auction off the good stuff and do your little FFL transfer and BG check?

  24. I’m betting that the gun owner backed over it with his truck, and figured he’d rather take the $100 than try to fix it. Usually when they destroy guns at these things they use chopsaws, not bending machines.

    Still, what a loss!

    • Wouldn’t look like that

      Jig and hammer or REBAR bender. My bet’s on the latter, at eight to three.

  25. Kind of reminds me of that time the Taliban blew up the 1400 year old carving of Buddha in the side of that mountain.

    Well, might be resorting to hyperbole there…

    • Nope. I was thinking the same thing.

      Destroying historic art because it violates some precept of ones faith.

      What I was thinking was the Conquistadores and Mayan temples, but six of one.

      • The only mitigating factor is that a Rossi revolver isn’t exactly irreplaceable. Same mentality though.

        From a macroeconomic point of view it never makes sense to willfully destroy wealth. Like the broken window parable, sure it’s good for the glazier (or gun maker), but it’s bad for whoever lost business because someone had to spend their money on a new window (or revolver) instead buying their product.

  26. Shite!

    Interrogative: If these yoyos are planning to destroy the thing anyway, why go to the trouble of mutilating it?

    Do they smash each gun at take-in, just to prevent the buyers from skimming the take?

    Tragic. Truly and supremely ugly behaviour.

  28. It’s disturbing when someone intentionally destroys an object with intrinsic value due to their demagogic ideology. What torturing small animals is to psychopathology this is to tyranny. It’s even more insane when one considers that more new guns are sold each day than are destroyed. So much cost and effort to destroy useful property in the face of it’s availability increasing rather than decreasing. At the point one is destroying guns on the spot the matter has left the realm of the political and entered that of the delusional.

    While I’ve always maintained that liberalism is more a form of mental disorder than legitimate political thought this sort of thing should given everyone pause. To support and elect people who consider it a service and a virtue to waste the public’s resources destroying the valuable property of it’s citizens is to invite the inmates to run the asylum.

  29. Why don’t we start our own Turn-in programs then auction off the guns to members? There’s no law that says that only the LEOS have to do it.

    • I think it’s good that local police are willing to take guns people don’t want; I think you should be able to walk in a station at any time with an unwanted gun and just hand it over, no questions asked. They can sell it and pay for department costs or take it apart and throw it in a scrapper for all I would care.
      What bugs the crap out of me is when they organize whole days of it, and pay for the guns, and pretend like it’s making the city safer. Hypocritical nonsense.

Comments are closed.