TTAG’s been highlighting the abject, indeed inescapable stupidity of gun buybacks since this website went live. Gun buybacks do sweet FA to reduce firearms-related crime, destroy valuable evidence of firearms-related crimes and encourage firearms-related crime (by creating a no-risk market for stolen firearms). They waste taxpayer money through police overtime and padded pensions. The logic for gun buybacks: any gun “taken off the street” is one less gun that might – might – available to criminals. Like criminals have trouble getting guns. Or you could prove that buybacks reduce criminal access. Anyway, here’s one I’ve never heard before, from a journalist no less . . .

According to the news babe above, buybacks are boffo because you can’t complain about gun violence unless you disarm and, thus, “have a stake in the game.” Huh? Let’s try that again . . .

So these may not be the weapons that may be used necessarily by a criminal, but they’re weapons that could still be used in the commission of a crime; so if you’re going to complain about gun violence this is the first step you can take and experts say it’s not going to curb crime but at least it gets you into the game. You’re engaged enough in your community to know it’s a problem and you have some power in doing something about it.

There’s only one explanation for this “puddle of consciousness” justification for this obvious example of expensive, pointless “security theater”: Maryland. The reporter works behind the lines, where gun control has become a way of life, a way of speaking. Thinking? Not so much. Maybe not at all.

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76 COMMENTS

  1. Lol so experts agree they’re useless but we should do them anyway? Instead of doing something useful?

  2. Where the hell are these things? I have two guns I’ve been hanging on to for over 10 years now just waiting for a gun buyback. Both are too dangerous to shoot or sell, but it would make me so happy to take some of these fools’ money in the process of getting rid of them. But we don’t seem to ever have any gun buybacks around here. Maybe I should go to MD?

    • Be sure it’s a paid gun buyback. The town of Sykesville just hosted one where they took your guns and you got nothing.

      A friend of mine with a FFL tried to buy some of the nicer pieces, but the town PD drove him off.

      • Wait – Sykesville is big enough to warrant having a Police Department? Consisting of more than a Chief???? Has O’Malley gone completely off the rails or did DHS establish an outpost on the way to PA?

        Just amazing…

        • I knew a guy from Sykesville in college. It was a totally appropriate place for him to be from.

    • I’m with you Larry. I have a few pieces of junk that have absolutely zero value and are unsellable, but I’d LOVE to grab some of this buyback money, especially since it is usually donated funds from some anti-organization. There have only been 2 within 100 miles of my house that I know of, and I heard about each one several days after the event. What else is a single shot .22 lr rifle that a home “gunsmith” drilled all the way thru the receiver for screws to mount a scope good for? Or the single shot no name 12 ga with a broken stock and dented barrel? Or the east European black powder 20 a shotgun that had been modified into a lamp? I got these as part of a group buy where I wanted one rifle, but had to take them all, and the price was right!!

    • LarryinTX: Do they need some attention by a gun smith or are they bad designs? I am always looking for things like this if interested.

    • Personally, at this point I’d never get rid of any of my guns – even if it were to be unserviceable. Call it family heirloom, pride of ownership, stubbornness, whatever.

      I’d especially *never* (never say ‘never’, but here you are) relinquish to a bribe for your unwanted guns event. I wouldn’t wanna give ‘em the satisfaction so to speak. I’D know I did the deed and that’s enough.

      If I *really* wanted to ‘get rid’ of a gun, I’d probably throw it into the bay rather than participate in one of those propaganda generating events put on for the brainwashed and opportunists in our community.

      Count me out!

  3. Right, so don’t complain about traffic jams or reckless drivers unless you get rid of your car. Don’t complain about food prices unless you stop going to the store and grow all your own crops and butcher your own meat. Don’t complain about the quality of TV programming unless you get rid of your TV and never watch again…

    What. An. Idiot.

    • I feel sorry for the poor woman, actually. Imagine that is was your job to go out and defend the absolutely indefensible. Like Jay Carney.

      That said, she deserves the Billy Madison quote, if anyone does:

      “… what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

  4. Notice the (not so) subliminal message of seeing “shotgun” 10000 times? That’s what they’re coming for next in prevention of “using the weapons that causes the most accidental shootings”

    • Hey? How’s it going establishing the “Commonwealth of Allegany”? I’m looking to establish the “Commonwealth of everything but not Northern Virginia Virginia “.

  6. “This really does nothing at all for the whole CRIME thing, but it does help create the view that guns are bad and should only be in the hands of the authorities.”

    That’s what they should’ve said, if they’re being honest.

  7. It’s perfectly consistent with leftist thinking. They measure success of any effort at the input end: How much money did you spend, how much did you give up for your beliefs. The output end, viz. whether or not any return was gained from the investment of resource, is never considered. Just like the war on poverty. The more we spend, the worse it gets, but that doesn’t matter. Good intentions are all that matter. At least from the perspective of the useful idiots.

  8. It amuses me that the police depts collecting these guns get to cheery pick and keep guns they like or see value in. Collectors grade firearms etc. You’d think the police would have an obligation to search sr numbers in an attempt to return stolen properly to its rightful owners. It’s institutionalized robbery.

  9. It is 2014 “journalist” requires use of quote marks.

    Where in that clip did you see a “babe”.

    • I think since RF instituted the no Israeli supermodels rule, he’s been going through withdrawal. Now he’s desperate for anything.

  10. 1. commit a crime with a firearm
    2. drop firearm off at gun buyback
    3. police never find murder weapon with my prints to tie me to the crime
    4. ???
    5. profit (by suing the police for undue force [ezpz] and wrongful arrest)

    • you have some power in doing something about it.

      We sure do. Elections are coming. Be afraid, Dems. Be VERY afraid. I hear Walmart needs greeters…

  12. Its the feelings mentality.

    “I feel safer if guns are illegal” even if they are actively making themselves less safe.

    “I feel like i am doing something about crime” even as they actually encourage crime.

  13. You shouldn’t complain about the possibility of being a victim of gun violence, unless you disarm yourself to increase the odds of being a victim of gun violence?

    Is the same as saying, “You’re less likely to be a victim of gun violence, if you have your own gun to defend yourself.” Someone should point that out to her.

  14. Obviously gun grabbers are detached from logic and driven purely by emotion. All statistics on the subject show that more guns equal less crime and that guns are overwhelmingly used more for lawful self defense than to commit crimes. Gun grabbers simply do not care. They are afraid of having responsibility in their own lives, which is why they kowtow to government at every opportunity. Our gracious and almightily good government overlords are the only ones who could possibly be responsible enough to be entrusted with the keeping and bearing of arms, so gun grabbers readily bow before the altar of government, ready to sacrifice both rights and freedoms that generations of Americans have died to protect. They believe you and I should join them on bended knee before the altar of government, because they simply can’t or don’t want to fathom a life where they are personally responsible for themselves.

  17. That is the dumbest thing I have heard today. Everything else will sound intelligent in comparison. Thanks, lady.

    • Well, she is a…blond…if that helps understanding the mentality.

      That’s not saying ALL blonds are so…erudite.

      /end sarc/

      • Well, she is wearing glasses, that means she’s smart, right? (Full disclosure, I wear glasses too).

  18. Did I just see a Daisy Red Rider BB gun in that news clip? You have got to be kidding me! I could buy one at Walmart and turn around and sell it for a profit.

    • I’ve got an old pellet rifle with a bent barrel I was thinking of bringing in to the next one in Phoenix. They were offering a $100 gift card for a rifle last time. I think I paid $25 for it in 1997, so that should be about a $63 profit (adjusted for inflation).

  19. “it’s not going to curb crime…” but “you have some power in doing something about it.”

    And if it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.

    What’s first aid for an aneurysm?

  20. “I can feel good about doing something about gun crime. It won’t actually stop criminals from committing illegal acts with guns, nor will it really stop gun accidents; it won’t have any real effect on the death by guns that happen every day, but I’m going have my local government commit my money, and I’m going to commit my time and effort because I’m doing something”.

    This is the liberal/progressive mind set in a nut shell.

    This really is a mental disorder.

  21. I think the gun grabbers just get off on grabbing guns. They love taking guns away.
    Like has been said before…..
    They don’t care about gun crime, gun accidents or suicides. They want ALL the guns.
    I bet they go home and pat themselves on the back…..”We took guns away today”.

    As a cop I would be so pissed if a criminal used a gun, SOLD it to the government who then destroyed my evidence. I am sure this happens do to the “No questions asked” way they do this.

    I wonder if there are any numbers on how many junk non working guns are being bought with tax dollars.
    Just another sad gun grabber tactic. Totally useless, just like they are.

  23. If you women want to complain about being whistled at when you walk past the construction site, I am afraid you will have to take all your clothes off before you walk by the site. That’s the only way you can have ‘skin’ in the game.

    Nope, sorry, as a precedent, I think it falls a little short.

  24. So according to the evidence gun buy backs do no good. (Except the feel good effect) So why are the done?

  28. “So these may not be the weapons that may be used necessarily by a criminal, but they’re weapons that could still be used in the commission of a crime”

    So may not be used by criminals but could be used in a crime, so who commits crimes exactly?

    Not even a Vulcan could break that logic down. Here we go again with the antis living in the land of what if.

    • I think what she tried, and failed, to do was make a distinction between someone who has already committed a crime (a criminal) having a gun, and a non-criminal with a gun – since antis believe that anyone with a gun is a new criminal waiting to happen. In other words, its only logical if your assumption is that having a gun is what causes crime.

  29. If people want to turn in their guns let ’em. I have no problem with that. The ones I see being turned in (at least the pictures) are generally old junk and would be best to be melted down and used for man hole covers. I’ve also heard some law enforcement agencies take the best guns being turned in and “repurposed” for use against the public. If the guns are being turned in to be scrapped, then that’s exactly what should happen to them, scrapped.

    On the flip side, the same people who are turning in their guns will likely be the same who will support and encourage legislation to curb other fundamental rights.

  30. Should have known it was going to be Maryland. As a former Marylander I am glad to say I got out of that communist craphole. This is a typical example of the media’s lack of knowledge on anything gun related. They must get their “facts” from the politicians in this state.

  31. Someone speaking like that has just put her brain in the neutral (not unbiased!) position.

  32. The writing on TTAG is great but this post does not even begin to do justice to the video clip…

    “doesn’t getting these guns off the streets help reduce accidents?”
    “Well, experts have studied the effects of these buybacks on gun violence and have said that do NOT help curb gun violence. But many feel like they do.”

    • Thanks Patrick for that and saving me the time to confirm just how bad this “news” reporter makes her employer look…propagandizing based on her own viewpoint.

      ANOTHER EXAMPLE of the progressive mindset that others here (Mina, Dyspeptic,etc )
      have explained as a function of brain development which can be understood in socio-biological terms as
      “Female solipsism”.

      ” ….studies…facts….BUT…feelings”

      Reminds me of a useful tip I heard from a psychotherapist as an acronym mnemonic.
      When you hear the “but” listen carefully to the phrase that comes after.
      Behold the Underlying Truth.

  34. And coming tomorrow: We pose a question that we can’t answer, and tell you why no one else can answer it either! Surely those ladies know what absolute drivel they are purveying.

  35. There was nothing even approaching a coherent point in your rambling, incoherent answer. Everyone here is now dumber for having listened to you two “journalists.” I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

    • Professional journalist is an oxymoron when applied to tv media types and most of the StateRunMedia™.

      The person pretending to report the facts is the doofus .

  37. I hate to be “that guy” but it looks to me that someone turned in an AT-4 which is actually not a rocket launcher at all and is a one time use weapon that can’t be reloaded or reused after its been fired, and an M-72 LAW which is again, a single shot disposable weapon, but at least they identified it correctly as a rocket launcher in that instance. My best guess is that they were stashed in the personal baggage of service members returning from deployment as “trophies”. typical ignorant news anchors get wrapped around the axle about something that have a tenuous understanding of at best and make it out to be something that it isn’t. my favorite part is that they found a so called “expert” to comment about the “issue”.

  39. Look don’t blame these small town cops for going along with the media circus. They don’t have the political l swing to compete with the urban and county types who are “buying” surplus MRAPS with DHS ‘grants” (read unsupervised slush funds l left over from stimulus program moola that didn’t otherwise find a shovel ready or union connected hiring program…teachers, unlicensed ACA Navigators, v I terms registration fraud oops I m mean front oops I mean DOJ Civil Rights Division Community Outreach programs…)

    A few of the better pieces make it I not the evidence locker and that money gets quietly laundered later for buying cameo, vests, helmets. Voila! SWAT! for Mayberry RPD.

  40. You must take into account that WMAR comes out of Baltimore, that haven of serenity and model of personal security. Where the words to The Star Spangled Banner were penned, and the freedom won during THAT war with the British is nothing more than a tourist gimmick.

    Where affluent Washington liberal bureaucrats go to sleep. Where Congress and the Prez go to observe the unemployed and poor in their native habitat. Where the school system staunchly champions the merits of the Common Core Criteria, and uses those materials in their public school classrooms. [Side comment: That news clip shows how well the logic segments work out in actual life. Hire local!] And that rabidly Democratic stronghold that produced Spiro Agnew, and built an interstate highway between a Governor’s house and the State House.

    And the city where Lady Liberty weeps bitterly.

  41. Looks like someone might be having the same intermittent keyboard function/non-function I have to fight with all the time. Anybody know what causes that?

    • Dirt and crap under the keys. Buy a can of air at an office supply store and blow out the keyboard. Hint: Wear safety glasses.

      • I’m afraid it isn’t as simple as that. Has something to do with pop-up/autoplay vid ads/something. It isn’t happening right now for example. Happens mostly when I try to post on blogs and news-forum sites, not when I’m writing e-mails or creating documents. Not a physical keyboard problem, in other words. Tho this thing probably could stand to be cleaned. Thanks for the reply, in any event.

  42. The blond said, essentially, “It doesn’t accomplish anything, but it sort of sets up a mindset…” Yeah, It doesn’t do squat but keeps giving legs to the “guns are bad” and “only the cops should have the guns” memes, and what’s up with that “buyback crap? I wish some politico had the testicular fortitude (and the financing) to get on the TeeVee and ask the taxpayers, “Is this how you want to see YOUR TAX DOLLARS wasted?”

    How many kids will miss out on their school lunch because your police department spent twelve thousand of your dollars buying and destroying valuable property like that?

  43. That’s funny because I did the opposite. I felt like I had no right to complain about gun violence until I started carrying a gun.

  44. The thing to do at these gun buy backs is take a shit load of scrap pipe washers and nails and sell it as zip gun parts kits.

  45. For the record, as someone who was raised in Southern Maryland (currently elsewhere due to college) I can tell you that most people don’t actually give a flying crap about the gun laws, and I have several teachers and friends who’ll disobey them and sleep quite peacefully. Baltimore is the primary reason these laws exist, and most people’d be very happy if they didn’t.

    • Most Maryland residents would be quite happy if Baltimore didn’t exist. Annapolis, too. Both are more trouble than they’re worth.

  46. so…

    by her logic, a buttered toast buy-back program would be equally as effective.

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