David Codrea brings the snark:
What I love is the requirement that it be "a working handgun." ...
I mean, what could make more sense than giving someone who knows nothing about guns financial incentive to pull the trigger to make sure it works?
Friday, November 21, 2008
Depriving widows of broken guns.
Cleveland is apparently conducting another gun "buy back" (without, as usual, explaining how one is supposed to buy back something one never owned in the first place.)
David Codrea brings the snark:
David Codrea brings the snark:
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5 comments:
Police will take in any working handguns Saturday and send you away with a $50 gas or grocery card, a pair of tickets to an upcoming Cavaliers game and an entry in a raffle for $1,000.
They are apparently tired of gunnies funding purchases of NEW boomsticks by turning in broken BB guns...
And why is it I'd be busted for carying a concealed weapon (carrying a pistol in a backpack) for doing as they are instructing folks turning in weapons? Equality before the law? Or just prosecute whever we don't like this week?
I probably have 18 or 20 little potmetal wonders in .32 short that people have given me over the years, mostly Belgian made copies of mini Webley revolvers.
Most lack the odd spring or two, but everything turns and goes clickity click. I'm waiting for a "Buy-Back" within a hundred miles or so, with something like a$50 to $100 dollar payout.
Shortly after I got home from the Marines, Connecticut had a "Buy-back" of "Assault rifles". On the list was the SKS. $125 buyback price, $95 per SKS at Hoffman's Gun Shop in Newington. No brainer.
I bought 4, turned them in (they were later auctioned off at the Motor Vehicle Dept.rather than being destroyed) and used the profits to get me a free SKS.
The day after I turned them in, they dropped SKS's from the assault weapons list.
Which is really a howl, as every SKS in the world can be made full auto with the addition of a strip of beer can aluminum in one particular place, not that I would recommend it.
Why turn a perfectly handy little rifle into a spray and pray piece of crap?
The really frightening thing about it was the phone exchange I had with State Police Lt. Colonel Moore.
I wanted to make certain the SKS was really considered a demon weapon before I blew a month's worth of G.I. bill peso on the deal, so I called C.S.P and ended up with the good Colonel on the line.
I pretended to be a quite liberal West Hartford type, scared to death of firearms and annoyed at the "Gun Nut" kid brother who'd left the dirty, nasty things behind when he moved out of my cellar.
The Colonel assured me they really were on the list, told me it was only a beginning, and they would never get guns off the streets until they disarmed the civilian population, eliminating private weapons that could be stolen.
As I had, only a few months before, seen quite effective Viet Cong submachineguns made out of Renault shock absorbers, I thought that was amusing, but I agreed with him that the world would be a better place, and picked up the weapons.
He encouraged me to bring the rifles down to be turned in, and I got my money from him, even though the weapons were, as far as he knew, the legal property of my brother, and he was aiding and abetting me in the theft of firearms. Can you say sociopathic scumbag?
I still think of it as amazing, particularly in Connecticut. We have a tough but fair pistol permit system that is ruthlessly enforced by a panel composed of one cop, one member of the State Pistol and Revolver Association, and one non-government lawyer both sides have agreed is fair.
Two out of three takes it for any application, and the background checks and handgun training required are more than many policemen get.
And, for reference, most cops in CT are very pro-gun. Son #1 is an inner city narcotics detective with a scary amount of gunfights under his belt, and he knows too many cops who have been bailed out of ugly spots by armed citizens.
He's also seen dirtbags he couldn't touch, end up on the wrong end of a shopkeeper's 12 gage, and felt the world is a better place for their lack.
It's still frightening to think a loser like the Colonel could make it so far up the scrotum pole in a basically, by north-eastern standards, pro gun state. Eternal vigilance, etc.
It was a gun buyback program that led to my buying a Jennings J22, interestingly enough. One of the guys on the local gun forum was debating about handing over his J22at a "buyback" when I offered him ca$h for the little potmetal wonder.
And now I have a friend interested in trading me a Mosin/Magant M44 (which I want) for the J22.
It's gunnie karma. I spared the Jennings from the smelter's torch; in turn it gets me a mil-surp I want. I paid almost exactly the going rate for an M44 today for the Jennings (~ $70 or so), and the one I'm trading for has already been shipped and de-cosmolene'd...
So, sometimes there are upsides to "buybacks"... Just not what would be considered upsides to the nanny-statist @$$holes who dream up the buyback schemes...
The Codrea link is gone baby gone, file not found, 404 this.
Sigh.
I think this is the article in question. Jim.
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