$4.99 lobster buffets. $3.95 Whopper combo meals. $500 prepaid debit cards. All of these for $17.76 in parts from Home Depot to make a ‘homemade’ gun. These days are long gone. Now, the cops are getting hip to these ideas and are done making worthwhile offers to buy guns from the public. While many who lack the intelligence to research values will gladly take the gift card on a legit firearm, many are simply unaware of the value, or just don’t care.
So, when the Sacramento PD held another “Gas for Guns buyback” and took 134 firearms from the public with a no-questions-asked policy, they got some interesting things for their money. For $50 gas cards per item, they took one “assault weapon,” numerous components for “ghost guns,” and numerous illegally set up firearms. Now, given California’s laws, it could be as simple as taking in an old magazine that made it illegal.
While the event was supposed to last from noon until 5 pm, they ran out of gas cards 45 minutes into the drive and stopped taking firearms an hour early. It sounds as if the lack of funding didn’t deter people from giving away perfectly good firearms, but the liberal poisoning of the mind has them convinced that giving up their guns will stop gun crime.
Shockingly, these programs happen to attract so many legitimate firearms. The broken, hardware store-designed, or inoperable firearms make sense to hand over if you really hate them and can get something back from them. However, with the average of $5.13 for gas in Sacramento as of the writing time, that gas card won’t even get you 10 gallons of regular gas. It’s a half tank for the subcompact drivers who usually show up to these sorts of things.
The true firearms owners and their pickups, SUVs, and Cadillacs drink a lot more fuel, run on more expensive fuel, and they only show up to these to offer people $100+ in cash for the firearms when they can. California tends to frown upon such actions, as it deprives them of taking advantage of the public. Granted. the public is incredibly misguided and ill-informed.
The officers got many reasons for making the deal, but the list of reasons they most often heard was incredibly troubling. “A lack of experience” with firearms, a “lack of knowledge” about guns, or the “inability” to safely store the firearms were listed as the top reasons. The funny thing is, these are not reasons to give up self-protection.
Experience with firearms is easy to get at the range, and those who already enjoy guns are more than happy to teach. With experience comes knowledge. Before you even start firing lead downrange, any reasonable firearms educator will give you a solid block of instruction, so you know what to expect and do while shooting. Storing firearms safely is simple. Get a lock, a safe, a quick access box, etc, and store the firearm. Problem solved.
Sacramento Police Chief Kathy Lester had some rather absurd words of her own. “As a department, we will continue to use innovative ideas to increase the safety of our community. I truly believe violent crime prevention is a shared responsibility and today’s overwhelming community participation is evidence of the success we can achieve together.”
As these buybacks have proven in the past, the number of crimes committed with the firearms they end up taking is minimal at best.
No matter how insultingly low they go, some diehard liberal, joyously uninformed, or stubborn-minded people will give up perfectly good weapons. Some are even collectible, too. Much like Obama’s Cash-For-Clunkers program, people will bring in grandpa’s war pistol, or great-great-grandma’s thigh derringer for a quick buck, and the self-satisfaction of turning in a gun. How pathetic.
