Quote from pspr:
Speaking of gun buy-back programs. I've read that most turn in junk weapons for the money so they can go buy a better gun. Duh.
All they really are, are gun upgrade programs. The fools.
Myth: Gun âbuy backâ programs get guns off the streets
Fact: According to the federal government, gun âbuybacksâ have âno effectâ.303
Fact: âBuy backsâ remove no more than 2% of the firearms within a community. And the firearms that are removed do not resemble guns used in crimes. âThere has never been any effect on crime results seenâ.304
Fact: Up to 62% of people trading in a firearm still have another at home, and 27% said they would or might buy another within a year.305
Fact: More than 50% of the weapons bought via a gun buy-back program were over 15 years old, whereas almost half of firearms seized from juveniles are less than three years old.306
Fact: According to a variety of sources, the actual effect is that gun buy-back programs:
⢠Disarm future crime victims, creating new social costs
⢠Give criminals an easy way to dispose of evidence
⢠Are turned in by those least likely to commit crimes (the elderly, women, etc.)
⢠Cheap guns are bought and sold back to the government for a profit
⢠Cause guns to be stolen and sold to the police, creating more crime
⢠Seldom return stolen guns to their rightful owners
Fact: "They do very little good. Guns arriving at buy backs are simply not the same guns that would otherwise have been used in crime. If you look at the people who are turning in firearms, they are consistently the least crime-prone [ed: least likely to commit crimes]: older people and women."307
303 Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn't, What's Promising, National Institute of Justice, July 1998
304 Garen Wintemute, Violence Prevention Research Program, U.C., Davis, 1997
305 Jon Vernick, John Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, Sacramento and St. Louis studies
306 District of Columbia buyback program, 1999
307 David Kennedy, Senior Researcher, Harvard University Kennedy School Program in Criminal Justice, in appearance on Fox News, November 22, 2000