How gun buy backs misfire
Inspired by the 100,000 Million Mom March,
Washington, D.C., Mayor Anthony Williams has embarked on an ambitious program to “buy back” firearms.
Last year a similar program by the city resulted in 3,000 guns being turned in for cash.
I’ve got several problems with so-called “gun buy back” programs.
First of all, why do we call them “buy backs”? The government is simply buying the guns. It is not buying them back. The government never owned them in the first place.
You may consider that nitpicking. But I think words actually mean things. The very fact that governments call these programs “buy backs” should signal to all freedom-loving Americans that governments believe all guns rightfully belong to the state. It is simply “buying them back.” Get it?
But that’s not my biggest problem — not by a long shot.
Listen to the way the Washington program is being run: According to the Washington Post, “This will
mark the second time in eight months that city officials have asked residents to turn in their weapons for cash, NO QUESTIONS ASKED.” (Emphasis added.)
Do you get it? The government has effectively become a “fence” for stolen property and weapons used in the commission of crimes. Criminals are now being rewarded, presumably, for stealing weapons. New incentives are being invented for ripping off firearms from law-abiding citizens. The government — in this case, the federal government — is trafficking in stolen property!
And this is not the action of some lone, local official simply misusing federal taxpayer dollars. Oh no. This is a conspiracy involving some of the highest officials in the land — including the tacit support of Congress — which administers the district — and Cabinet officials, who have graciously “contributed” your money to the cause.Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo was at Williams’ side when this historic announcement was made earlier this week. He said his agency will “contribute” $100,000 to the program. Don’t you love that? It’s a “contribution.” Cuomo the Compassionate has “contributed” money to the cause — your money.
“There’s no doubt this will save lives,” he said.
Well, there’s plenty of doubt in my mind. As I have written many times, guns in the hands of law-abiding people save lives. And, worse yet, by providing new financial incentives to steal guns from law-abiding people, the state is actually endangering more lives in the future.
“The buy back program will reduce the number of guns that exist in the community,” Cuomo said. “There are 200 million guns in this society. We just have too many guns; that’s why we kill more people per year than any other industrialized nation on the globe.”
Let me remind Mr. Cuomo that the District of Columbia has, for some time, enforced some of the strictest gun control measures in the country. At the same time, the violent crime rate has skyrocketed. Likewise, nationwide, it is tougher to buy a gun and carry it than it has ever been in the history of our nation. Not that long ago — in my lifetime — a 14-year-old kid could go to the corner store, buy a gun and take it home. He could carry it to school with him and participate in target-shooting clubs — even in New York City. When guns were more prevalent in our society — before the hysteria and the taboos — we were all a lot safer. That’s a fact.
Does anyone really believe that we will be safer in the future if the government continues this insane practice of indiscriminately buying guns from anyone without question? Are we not creating a wider market for black-market guns? Stolen guns? Guns used in
> crimes?
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It should be clear to one and all that the so-called “gun buy backs” are merely window dressing for a much broader plan of government gun confiscation. This is the prelude. Government already thinks that, legitimately, all guns belong to the state. That’s why the state is merely “buying them back.” The day is coming soon — if Americans don’t wake up — that the
state will make such programs mandatory and it won’t be paying any finder’s fees.
A daily radio broadcast adaptation of Joseph Farah’s commentaries can be heard at KTKZ in Sacramento and the Internet portal OnePlace.com