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Originally Posted by MartinSE
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See what you started?
I see absolutely nothing wrong with these buy back programs (who cares what they are called), especially with the offer of amnesty. Reality is that it is a “spoonful from an ocean”, and it isn’t going to get those “scary assault weapons” (typed with ALOT of sarcasm) off of the streets, so it is symbolic. However, what if there was a nationwide one week/one weekend amnesty program? It would still be symbolic, but perhaps people might feel as if something to move the needle forward is being done?
Since it is voluntary, no one is compelled to participate. Worried about the tax dollars spent? I am pretty sure we can all agree that the government has wasted more tax dollars than this.
I’ll pick an average of 1000 guns per state that are turned in. This is a WAG, so let’s not debate a higher or lower amount as this is purely theoretical. So with 50 states participating, the cost of the “buy back” to tax payers @$50 per firearm is $2,500,000 not including salaries, supplies, transportation and disposal costs. Please, this is still theoretical!
Both the government and the NRA can issue a joint statement in support of the buyback and can tout the results. Yes, most of the weapons may be in essence junk, but it will also remove functional firearms that are in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them (for whatever reason) or as in my note below, don’t want them at all.
On a personal note, I suggested to a party in another state that they take advantage of an upcoming amnesty buy back program. Without going into details, they found themselves unexpectedly in violation of the law involving a fully functional firearm. I wouldn’t trust just calling the police to collect the weapon (and won’t go into details why), so rather than paying an attorney to get them legal, I suggested the amnesty program. I told them to wrap up the firearm, put it in the trunk of the car and drive directly to where the firearms were being collected and turn it in. Note that they did not want to keep the firearm at all, so becoming “legal” AND retaining the weapon was not their goal.