Article on the destruction of guns in Luzerne County. This is one nasty side effect of all the immigration from New Jersey and New York to Northeastern Pennsylvania. I’m disappointed to see this:
Financed by a $10,000 Project Safe Neighborhoods grant secured by state Rep. Todd Eachus, D-Butler Township, for use the 116th Legislative District, the District Attorney’s Office offered gift certificates for the Laurel Mall in denominations of $50 per long gun and $75 per handgun.
Eachus is A-rated. How many of those guns destroyed have historical value? Collectors should get first dibs before the guns are destroyed. You could make a program like this self-funding, essentially hooking up people who don’t want the guns anymore with people who do want them. Destroy the junk? Fine. But this is a waste, both of taxpayer dollars and potential historical collector pieces. Is this something an NRA A-rated politician ought to be enabling? I don’t think so.
I often wondered what is stopping someone from standing outside the door offering people what the guns are actually worth? Or hell just slightly more than they are going to get by turning them in.
Nothing, and I’ve heard of people doing that.
Why doesn’t some enterprising gun store set up a booth and wade through the guns being brought in selecting guns that are actually of some value, offering slightly more to the people bringing them in as incentive and then purchase them and then resell them at a discounted price still making a nice tidy profit?
California collectors and activists set up shop out front of theses in California. There have been some serious finds.
Nothing like letting the usually poor gun surrenderers have a windfall here and there.
-Gene
Around here most of the Sherrif’s offices sell confiscated firearms at monthly sales, along with cars, jewelry, and excess equipment.
When our anti-gun governor a few years back started destroying law-enforcement recovered guns Wayne Anthony Ross sued.
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/ayoob75.html
That State Rep needs to be informed his $10,000 grant cost that county thousands more potential dollars from resale to licensed FFLs.
If the rubes want to feel good about turning in guns for less than value let tehm. Then the state can turn around and make a profit getting those guns “off the street” (and back in teh hands of licensed dealers.
I have often wondered if gun buy-backs would accept zip guns. If so, I could make a bunch of them from a metal toddler bed!
Two things would keep me from doing this:
1. I have a conscience, and this is vaguely dishonest; I’d probably do it more to make fun of a buy-back program, than to make money.
2. I live in Utah, and so there isn’t likely to be any gun buy-backs anytime soon.
Although all guns can be collector’s items, some are simply just worth more than others–and zip guns wouldn’t be worth all that much!
It used to be they’d offer cash for guns, but that quickly would turn into an excuse for collectors to clean their safes of junk. I even knew of one gun owner who would go around and buy up junk in anticipation of a buyback, in order to turn it in at the buyback for a higher price point.
When buybacks realized this, they started offering gift certificates or grocery cards. That way they ensured collectors were using the programs to turn junk into new gun purchases.