I’m against the lawsuit. but I’m also against the destruction of perfectly useful firearms.
Sure, they’re just tools. But if I learned that the police had a working bulldozer and decided to destroy it instead of sell it, I would find that an improvident regard for safeguarding public money.
And a bulldozer is just a tool.
In part because they are valuable. Some are art, some are pieces of history, most have some utility, and in no case do I want my tax dollars going to an obvious anti-gun cause. That’s my reasons at least. If you don’t like guns yourself I wouldn’t object in principle to your buying them yourself and destroying them.
If the cops were doling out $20 for used ski equipment, do you think anyone would give a shit what they did with them, even if they were still useful and/or valuable.
What’s the score? Are guns the simple inanimate objects that I’m a pussy to be afraid of or not? Cops bought them. They can do what they want with them.
The whole point to a gun-buy-back program is to get guns out off the street. Under what circumstance can you imagine that the cops would start buying out excavating equipment to make sure they don’t end up in the hands of criminals?
I think the debatable relevant statutes for unclaimed items said anything worth less than $20 could be disposed of, worth more than $20 and it was supposed to go to auction.
I think you are a pussy to be afraid of guns, but many of them are really fine pieces of machinery to be appreciated. Maybe you should take an NRA beginner class to get over your fears.
Doesn’t apply if they are bought.
I suppose the courts will decide that. So you think it is good if all government owned guns are destroyed? Good as in, better than if they are sold to law abiding citizens?
They are being sold to law abiding citizens.
If law-abiding citizens want guns, they can toddle on down to Wal-Mart and buy all the guns they want. What’s so fucking special that guns that were turned in on a buy-back?
Very few.
But the whole point of my position: I don’t agree that a generic plan of reducing gun numbers in the public’s hands is a good idea. Specific individuals may indeed be good candidates for giving up their guns, but the general idea of “getting guns of the street” with this sort of buyback is one I do not support.
This whole thing is pretty sad. It sounds like a bunch of NRA members are wanked off that people will sell guns to the police for $20, but not to them. Face it, if the people turning in guns just wanted rid of them, they would have been up on Craigslist. For what ever reason, the people want rid of the guns in a way that THE OWNERS feel are responsible and THE OWNERS are well aware that the guns will be destroyed.
What will the NRA gain in this stupid law suit (other than to challenge PETA for the most idiotic, reactionary organization in the US)? IF they win, the people involved can create a non-profit to do the exact same thing and the PD can still provide the destruction (after collecting a ballistics sample) for the non-profit. What will the NRA do then? Try to make it illegal for a non-profit to destroy da widdle precious wipons?
As for collectors or investors… something that is rare is made more valuable when the stragglers are permanently taken out of circulation. So, I don’t see an honest collector having any problems with this. (But it would be nice if the donors could get a tax receipt for the market value of the weapon surrendered).
Guns like the Garand thrown around on here are a bit like panicking over wheat pennies. Sure, you don’t see them everyday, but it isn’t like they’re extremely rare or that museums are tripping over themselves to increase their inventory of them.
As all the NRA folks keep saying… they’re inanimate objects. And if people shouldn’t fear them… they NRA folks are certainly pretty weird for how they are fighting to prevent their destruction – as if they’re kittens who are about to be publicly clubbed to death.
I’d like to see public smeltings… like along the lines of those public car bashes… Gun OWNER donates (and after a ballistics example is collected), either the Gun OWNER or a random victim of gun violence gets to throw the gun into the smelter… maybe set up a robotic arm and they can actually wave it into the forge and melt it a bit… then pull it back out, then put it back in… Imagine all the weeping and gnashing of teeth by the NRA membership and such a public display. It would be hysterical to watch. I know several guys that would go hunt up guns for the chance to personally put through a smelter and not a single one of them are anti-gun… they just like cool stuff and aren’t in any sort of emotional relationship with their weapons.
Nothing particularly special. But they are not evil, or murderous,or possessed of the spirits that they were used to murder, either, so why must they be destroyed?
Is that it? You think they’re haunted? You think the spirits of anyone shot with a gun follows the gun around for eternity, and only by destroying the gun can they go into the light?
has anyone here even hinted that that was the reason?
And before I now out of this completely as the pointless exercise that it is, it was established repeatedly that these guns weren’t purchased by the government, correct? The $20 gift card were supplied by donors, yes? Just want to make sure my reading comprehension isn’t as jiggered as it seems to be for some or if I need to recalibrate it. Thanks in advance.
Can you explain this a bit more?
If there are, in the world, only fifty known Dag Hammarskjold inverts with first day covers, and I am an honest collector who wants one…why would I be pleased to hear that five were destroyed?
Fine, and there are disputes over police policy all the time in the US. If somebody disagrees with police policy, and the police policy is illegal, there is nothing inherently unreasonable with that person filing a lawsuit in an attempt to force the police to obey the law. Similarly, if the police policy in question is legal, there is nothing inherently unreasonable in lobbying to have the law changed to make the policy illegal.
Of course, you may feel that the NRA’s pro-gun position is inherently unreasonable, or wrong-headed, or evil. But in that case, pit them for that. Not for threatening to file a lawsuit.
Not necessarily. For example, down the road the government might start imposing a $200 transfer tax on gun sales to pay for gun buybacks. And the tax might eventually turn into an outright ban.
Let me ask you this: If Planned Parenthood filed lawsuits over these types of things or lobbied to keep them from becoming law, would you think Planned Parenthood deserves to be pitted over it? If Planned Parenthood were to assert these things are steps on a slippery slope, would you think Planned Parenthood is crazy?
No, but I’m not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that the NRA is forcing everyone to buy guns and attacking those who don’t as unAmerican?
Yes, as many people have hinted that this is the real reason as have said that the NRA is the Church of the Holy Gun and it’s blasphemous to destroy that which they worship.
Holy* Bangstick*.
Get it right, it’s not Bangstick, but Boomstick!
That’s right, shop smart, shop S-Mart! 