In The News Oct/99 sometime ... just ran across this .... Mike has some good points here but usually "bends to the current polictical climate" ... not a staunch supporter of the RKBA
"Mike Rosen (Rcky Mtn News
http://inseidedenver.com/rosen/1001rosen.shtml)
Money wasted on wrong guns
There isn't much Republicans in Congress can do about President Clinton's latest exercise in political gimmickry. The $15 million he intends to throw away on a silly gun buy-back program doesn't require a new appropriation. It'll come out of the existing budget for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which seems to have found the extra money lying around somewhere. (So much for HUD's perpetual pleas for more funding.)
Here's how it's supposed to work: HUD will provide up to half a million dollars each as reimbursement to at least 30 city police departments who buy back and destroy guns from citizens. At $100 per gun (that's what Washington, D.C., paid recently to recover 2,306 weapons), this would remove 150,000 guns from circulation. HUD is suggesting, but not requiring, that participating cities pay not more than $50 per gun, which would double the program's impact, recovering 300,000 guns. Hell, if they paid only $1 per gun, they'd get back 15 million. Unfortunately, unless HUD can repeal the laws of economics, the less they offer for surrendered guns the fewer they'll get. It should be noted that there are about 300 million guns in circulation. Reducing that amount by 150,000 or 300,000 is nothing but a publicity stunt.
Now think about it. What kind of guns do you imagine will be turned in, and by whom? Will criminals surrender murder weapons so they can be used as evidence in their trials? Will a perfectly serviceable Smith & Wesson semi-automatic 9mm, worth $800, be turned in for 50 bucks? No, the cops will get a collection of junk, and overpay for it. Sounds like a typical government program. I can imagine a gangbanger turning in a worthless Saturday Night Special, and using the 50 bucks to buy a better gun.
I got a fax the other day from a gun collector who told me how he's participated, with other collectors, in programs like this in the past: "We would gather as a group and sell guns that not only had no value to anyone, but we would even put together parts of guns that made no sense, didn't work, didn't go together ... then we'd hand over the money to the Coalition Against Gun Control."
When Clinton first announced this boondoggle, he boldly asserted: "Every gun turned in through a buy-back program means potentially one less tragedy." Not necessarily. He might just as well have the touted the potential safety benefits of a program to buy back kitchen knives. Citizens who turn in serviceable guns are rendered less able to defend themselves from criminal predators. The research of criminology professors Gary Kleck and John R. Lott Jr. persuasively demonstrates the net benefit of gun ownership by law-abiding citizens, with successful personal and home defense incidents greatly outnumbering gun misfortunes.
Tonya Aultman-Bettridge of the University of Colorado's Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence concludes: "Pretty much, globally, across the board, all of the research shows (gun buy-back programs) are ineffective." Gun-control advocates have offered no evidence to the contrary.
Naomi Paisse of Handgun Control Inc. grudgingly concedes that gun buy-back programs "probably (have) less effect on people with criminal intentions." "But," she pleads, "if we save even 20 kids a year from an accidental shooting because an old gun has gotten out of a home, that's certainly worth doing." This is a variation on the familiar "even if it only saves one life" canard. But you'll notice she didn't say "one kid," she said "20." When they up the emotional ante like that, it's a sign that they have an even weaker argument than usual.
In the rational public policy debate, gun-control zealots are beyond reach. Mainstream Americans seem to realize that responsible gun ownership makes law-abiding citizens more secure, not less. Nothing is served by wasting millions of taxpayers' dollars on harebrained schemes to make wishful thinkers feel better."
