Helping felons avoid justice, government style

[Kulindahr]

Need $250? Know someone with a gun you can get to? Well, Union County, New Jersey is the place to be: no questions asked, no strings attached, if you show up at the Morning Star Community Christian Center, 1009 Chandler Ave., Linden or the Vision of God Family Worship Church, 350 Leland Ave., Plainfield, they'll give you those dollars.

Committed a crime with a gun, and need to get rid of it? Remember, no questions asked, you can get rid of it at one of those places, and get paid for turning in that evidence which could convict you!

The cash is courtesy of the taxpayers, the destruction of evidence courtesy of the county at the expense of those same taxpayers.

Isn't it great that government is willing to stage political feel-good events that help criminals keep their careers instead of risking getting locked up for years? I suppose maybe it's cheaper than catching them and convicting them... maybe.

Of course the politicians call it a "buy back", which is ludicrous because they never owned the firearms in the first place. And of course they'll claim it's meant to reduce violence, when the record of these affairs shows that they're beloved of armed felons because it's a chance to get rid of guns they've used for crimes, or to grab a gun from someone else and sell it.

One more stunt for the crowds.

 

[Alnitak]

Just plop em into the furnace at Sparrows Point when no one's looking

 

[Ninja108]

Just plop em into the furnace at Sparrows Point when no one's looking

I imagine many people are thinking of doing just that.

 

[Stardreamer]

That quite often happens in these buyback programs, quite often the criminals use them to unload 'hot' weapons used in crimes and take the money the got to buy a new 'clean' weapon for more crimes. You also quite often get people just bringing in old broken and serviceable weapons to get the money which also does nothing to reduce gun violence. As long as the guns are easily replaceable, gun buy backs like this really accomplish nothing.

 

[Mitchymo]

Talk about faux outrage Kuli.

Your opposition to this is because it is essentially a gun reduction scheme, not because a few bad guys might abuse it. After all, it doesn't seem to bother you that your 'guns for all' outlook is abused by a few bad guys....and a few ex-cops....and a few working cops....and a few psychotic teenagers....

 

[Kulindahr]

That quite often happens in these buyback programs, quite often the criminals use them to unload 'hot' weapons used in crimes and take the money the got to buy a new 'clean' weapon for more crimes. You also quite often get people just bringing in old broken and serviceable weapons to get the money which also does nothing to reduce gun violence. As long as the guns are easily replaceable, gun buy backs like this really accomplish nothing.

In college I knew a guy who had a cheap-ass pistol that kept jamming no matter what we did -- "we" including two gunsmiths. He'd paid $120 for it, but when a certain city did a "buyback" and was giving $200 for any weapon, he happily turned in his piece of crap and used the money to go get an effective one.

And yes, the major effects of these programs is to let people with worthless pieces of crap get money for them, and allow criminals to get firearms destroyed, and encourage criminals to steal a gun or five and sell them to the [STRIKE]stunt men[/STRIKE] government.

 

[Kulindahr]

Talk about faux outrage Kuli.

Your opposition to this is because it is essentially a gun reduction scheme, not because a few bad guys might abuse it. After all, it doesn't seem to bother you that your 'guns for all' outlook is abused by a few bad guys....and a few ex-cops....and a few working cops....and a few psychotic teenagers....

Climb out of your fantasy world and stop making up crap -- or, more accurately, spinning lies.

 

[bankside]

Talk about faux outrage Kuli.

Your opposition to this is because it is essentially a gun reduction scheme, not because a few bad guys might abuse it. After all, it doesn't seem to bother you that your 'guns for all' outlook is abused by a few bad guys....and a few ex-cops....and a few working cops....and a few psychotic teenagers....

Yup. You've nailed it.

 

[Mitchymo]

Climb out of your fantasy world and stop making up crap -- or, more accurately, spinning lies.

Says the guy who titled the thread as such.....

Yep, that's what the government is trying to do here....help felons

 

[Stardreamer]

That is pretty much exactly what the government is doing and helping folks replace old, broken guns with newer working ones. Calling this a gun reduction program is a laugh, it actually increases the number of working guns in use while reducing tax payer wallets. The only way such a program can be effective is if the guns are not subject to being replaced. The much vaunted Australian program had some effect because the guns they were buying had just been banned by law giving their owners an incentive to turn them in. In the long run even that was not really a gun reduction program as the level of gun ownership in Australia is about the same today as it was before the program, it just moved to different types of guns.

 

[Kulindahr]

Yup. You've nailed it.

Chalk up another one in the fantasy world column.

You guys don't actually pay attention to anything but your caricatures of others here, do you?

 

[Kulindahr]

That is pretty much exactly what the government is doing and helping folks replace old, broken guns with newer working ones. Calling this a gun reduction program is a laugh, it actually increases the number of working guns in use while reducing tax payer wallets. The only way such a program can be effective is if the guns are not subject to being replaced. The much vaunted Australian program had some effect because the guns they were buying had just been banned by law giving their owners an incentive to turn them in. In the long run even that was not really a gun reduction program as the level of gun ownership in Australia is about the same today as it was before the program, it just moved to different types of guns.

This is a very good point: in some cases people are ditching old firearms they really don't want any more anyway, but you may be right about the overall effect.

But felons do love these stunts, because they can so easily use them to eliminate weapons that could incriminate them, or can steal a weapon and there will never be any possibility of any charges against them, because the evidence is destroyed by the government. The claim is that at least the result is fewer guns on the street, but there are no figures at all to support that, and really no way to get them.

Seattle has at least gotten one part right: if stolen firearms are brought in, even though they've helped a criminal avoid prosecution, they try to return the weapons to their rightful owners -- unlike this particular one, where they are receiving stolen property and depriving honest citizens of that property.

 

[Keeland]

But felons do love these stunts, because they can so easily use them to eliminate weapons that could incriminate them, or can steal a weapon and there will never be any possibility of any charges against them, because the evidence is destroyed by the government.

How difficult can it be to get rid of gun? Drop it in a river; drop it in a lake; drop it in the ocean; drop it in a dumpster on the other side of the very large city, especially if the other side of the city is in another state; bury it.

Why would anyone turn in a gun used in a crime? Would anyone turning in such a weapon not be concerned that every gun turned in is traced or attempts made to trace it?

Bank robber contemplates a plan: "Hmmm. I murdered six people while robbing the First Acme Bank of Capital City. How do I get rid of the gun? Oh, I know! Turn it in so the gubmint will destroy it! What could go wrong?"

 

[Stardreamer]

How difficult can it be to get rid of gun? Drop it in a river; drop it in a lake; drop it in the ocean; drop it in a dumpster on the other side of the very large city, especially if the other side of the city is in another state; bury it.

Why would anyone turn in a gun used in a crime? Would anyone turning in such a weapon not be concerned that every gun turned in is traced or attempts made to trace it?

Bank robber contemplates a plan: "Hmmm. I murdered six people while robbing the First Acme Bank of Capital City. How do I get rid of the gun? Oh, I know! Turn it in so the gubmint will destroy it! What could go wrong?"

If that was what the government was doing you would have a point, but they make it very clear that such checks will not be done. That is the 'no questions asked' part. They know that they will get a less guns turned in if there is any suspicion that the guns are being checked and are traceable back to the person who turned them in. They don't take names or attempt to identify the person turning the gun in at all so that even if they performed such a check they couldn't track down the criminal. That being the case why wouldn't you let the government deal with the disposal for you and get a little case out of the deal?

 

[Kulindahr]

How difficult can it be to get rid of gun? Drop it in a river; drop it in a lake; drop it in the ocean; drop it in a dumpster on the other side of the very large city, especially if the other side of the city is in another state; bury it.

Why would anyone turn in a gun used in a crime? Would anyone turning in such a weapon not be concerned that every gun turned in is traced or attempts made to trace it?

Bank robber contemplates a plan: "Hmmm. I murdered six people while robbing the First Acme Bank of Capital City. How do I get rid of the gun? Oh, I know! Turn it in so the gubmint will destroy it! What could go wrong?"

Cities, for example, report over and over that a substantial fraction of guns turned in on these stunts are stolen, and/or have been used in a crime. But they take no pictures, no names, nothing at all to identify anyone turning in weapons. So the record shows that criminals do in fact turn in firearms and don't get caught, because the government has promised them they won't get caught. The percentage of such firearms tends to hover around 4% -- lower than the number of totally nonfunctional ones turned in -- but has occasionally gone into double digits.

 

[Kulindahr]

If that was what the government was doing you would have a point, but they make it very clear that such checks will not be done. That is the 'no questions asked' part. They know that they will get a less guns turned in if there is any suspicion that the guns are being checked and are traceable back to the person who turned them in. They don't take names or attempt to identify the person turning the gun in at all so that even if they performed such a check they couldn't track down the criminal. That being the case why wouldn't you let the government deal with the disposal for you and get a little case out of the deal?

Yes. In many cases, there aren't even any checks done on the firearms; they're immediately tossed in a scrap bin and taken directly to be melted down.

 

[Keeland]

Wow. I wouldn't believe a cop if I asked him the time.