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Springfield, MA Buyback Yielded Whopping 38 Guns

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Gun buybacks are a joke.

First, they don’t take guns out of criminal hands for the most part. Most who show up are people looking to get rid of a gun who don’t know how else to sell one. Others are people looking to take advantage of the “no questions asked” policy to drop guns used in crimes and pick up a few bucks more than dumping them in a river.

Then there’s the fact that so many of them seem poorly attended when you consider a community’s size.

Take this one in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Saturday’s gun buy-back event yielded 38 firearms turned into police.

The event, held at the Raymond M. Sullivan Safety Complex, offered members of the public a $50 Big Y Gift Card for every turned in firearm. The Springfield Police Department partnered with the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department and Springfield City Councilors Melvin Edwards and Jesse Lederman to host the event.

Now, the police will look and see if any were used in criminal acts, which won’t matter because they don’t have a name to put with the gun in the first place.

But a whole 38 guns? Springfield is a city of over 150,000 people, and the best they could get was 38 guns?

Is it any wonder so many of us look at so-called buybacks and laugh?

First, buybacks don’t buy anything back. The guns were never the governments in the first place, with a few exceptions such as American-made Milsurp weapons, and those don’t usually show up at these events.

Second, look at who shows up with these. You get the soccer moms who found out their late father had a few firearms and they want to throw them out without throwing them out. After all, with a $50 grocery store gift card, you’re basically throwing the guns away.

I’m always amused that they actually think a $50 gift card will sway someone to get rid of a gun.

As it stands, this is only a way to dispose of weapons people wanted to dispose of in the first place. This doesn’t encourage anyone to get rid of a gun unless they already wanted to do so.

And when you offer more, you run into other issues. Like, say, imagine a buyback offering $300 gift cards instead for a handgun. Well, what you do is buy a couple of Hi-Points, run to the buyback and trade them in and you basically double your money.

Nicely done.

Third, take a look at the kinds of guns that show up at these events. Most are junk. They’re not going to menace anyone on the American streets. Hell, if someone were to try to shoot someone with one of these, the damn things might just blow up, some are in such awful shape.

Again, they’re guns that someone would have thrown in the trash.

Couple that with a whopping 38 guns collected in a city of more than 150,000 people and you’ve got comedy gold. Not intentional comedy, mind you, but comedy nonetheless. Well done, Springfield. Well done indeed.

Beto Not The Biggest Threat To TX Gun Owners

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In fact, I don’t think Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke poses much of a threat at all to gun owners in the Lone Star State, even if he does declare himself a candidate for governor. But as we detail on today’s Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co, there is a potential candidate who has the potential to upend Texas politics, and his views are not alright, alright, alright with most Second Amendment activists.

Yep, Matthew McConaughey is rumored to be weighing a run for governor himself next year, and a new poll of Texas voters suggests he’d be the front-runner if he officially declares.

In the most recent poll from the Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler, a still undecided Matthew McConaughey is polling better against Gov. Greg Abbott than O’Rourke.

McConaughey, who has been flirting with a gubernatorial run for almost a year now, has polled well against Abbott in the past. In this poll, 44 percent of respondents said they would vote for McConaughey over Abbott in a hypothetical matchup, compared to 35 percent who would vote for Abbott.

Comparatively, 37 percent of respondents said they would vote for O’Rourke. But Abbott would win with 42 percent of the vote, according to this particular poll.

Now, part of McConaughey’s popularity undoubtably comes from the fact that most voters don’t know much about his political positions. If he were an actual candidate, he’d be facing a lot more scrutiny on various issues, and that would include his stance on gun control. I’m guessing that many Texans aren’t aware that McConaughey is a lot closer to Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke’s “hell yes I’m going to take your AR-15” than he is to the Gonzales Flag’s “Come and Take It”. Take this report from 2018:

A month after speaking at the March for Our Lives in his hometown of Austin, Texas, Matthew McConaughey says he supports some gun control but fears the youth-led movement could be “hijacked” by those hoping to eliminate all guns in the United States.

McConaughey spoke about his support for the marchers on Monday in Las Vegas, where he was promoting his upcoming film, White Boy Rick, at the CinemaCon theater-owners convention.

He called gun violence “an epidemic in our country.”

“I’ve got a lot of friends who are gun owners. I’ve got a lot of friends who are NRA (National Rifle Association). I grew up hunting. We had responsible gun ownership, but I was taught the right way to respect that tool,” he said. “At the same time, their petition that they were speaking about is a very good one. And I also fear that their campaign — they have to watch that they don’t get hijacked. Meaning, a lot of the crowd was for no guns at all. That was not the march for life. March for Our Lives was for rightful, just, responsible gun ownership — but against assault rifles, against unlimited magazines and for following up on the regulations.”

The 48-year-old Oscar winner said he hoped to find room for agreement between anti-gun activists and the NRA.

“The two sides (have) got to talk. Because we both agree that there’s an epidemic. We both agree something has got to change. So I was for what they were marching for, and I wanted to speak to my hometown on the capital of my state Texas’ steps. And also talk to the many men and women who I grew up with, I know that had the guns, that owned the guns, and say hey, do we really, where can we reach across the aisle here? Find a compromise for the betterment of all of us?”

Well, you won’t find common ground by trying to criminalize the possession of the most commonly-sold rifle in the United States or the 100+ million “large capacity” magazines in the hands of legal gun owners. And contrary to what McConaughey said about March for Our Lives three years ago, the organization isn’t for “responsible” gun ownership. In fact, it has made its position clear: gun licensing and registration, bans on commonly-owned firearms, a 30% reduction in the number of privately owned guns within the next few years (accomplished, or so they claim, through gun “buybacks”), and other attempts to criminalize the exercise of a civil right.

McConaughey’s candidacy would largely mirror Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke’s support for gun bans, but it would be wrapped in a much more appealing package. The actor is a genuinely likable guy, unlike O’Rourke, and I think McConaughey is savvy enough that he wouldn’t proclaim his support for a ban on AR-15s by telling Texans he was coming for their guns.

I’m really not worried about Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke delivering Texas to the gun control lobby next year, but Matthew McConaughey is a different story, and one that could have a very unhappy ending as far as Second Amendment supporters are concerned.

NC Democrats Begin Push For Red Flag Law

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Earlier this year, the state of North Carolina passed a bill that would repeal a draconian Jim Crow-era law that requires a permit prior to buying a gun. The governor vetoed it.

Now, the same state legislature that voted to repeal a bit of gun control is being asked to pass a bit more. I’m talking about a push to pass a red flag law.

House Democrats are pushing for the North Carolina General Assembly to debate two bills that would change gun laws in the state.

House Bill 525 would allow North Carolina residents to stop other people from obtaining a firearm in certain situations. House Bill 623 would require a permit for “long guns,” or long-barrelled guns.

Democrats have pushed for the legislation in previous sessions after gun violence incidents. House Democrats filed discharge petitions to move the bills out of committee and to the full House for debate this week.

“This is common-sense gun safety legislation to prevent suicides and gun violence,” Rep. Marcia Morey, D-Durham, said regarding HB 525. “We need 61 members to get this bill debated.”

Republicans hold the majority in both chambers of the Legislature. There are 52 Democrats and 68 Republicans in the House. Democrats have not been able to successfully move a bill from committee for the past few years, Rep. Julie von Haefen, D-Wake, said last week during a news conference.

And this is the direction they wanted to go?

The very same legislature that passed a pro-Second Amendment bill is the one they expect to pass a red flag law? Good luck with that.

The irony here is that this could have actually been done. Had state Democrats been smart, they could have made it happen, but they took their typical “all or nothing” approach and so now they get to waste their time trying to push this bill.

See, had the governor stepped up and said that he’d sign the licensing bill if Republicans would have backed the red flag law, I suspect they could have scared up nine legislators to support it. There actually is support for red flag laws among the GOP, after all.

Democrats would have had their win with a red flag law and Republicans would have ended a very problematic purchase permit requirement. Everyone would have won.

And while I vehemently oppose red flag laws, I’d still count this as mostly a pro-Second Amendment win. Ending a purchase permit law would benefit all gun buyers. A red flag law would only negatively impact a handful of folks. Awful if you’re one of the handful, to be sure, and I’d still want to see it repealed as fast as possible, but while it’s one step back, removing the permit would be two steps forward.

But Democrats weren’t interested in wheeling and dealing.

For all their talk about how Republicans won’t compromise, this is a prime example of how they could have tried to show us how it’s done. They didn’t.

Instead, they threw their tantrum and vetoed a bill that repealed a law with deep racist roots–and at a time when Democrats are supposedly tearing down anything with any tie to racism and slavery they can even imagine.

So, Republicans have no reason to back this one. Compromise is a two-way street, and Democrats are truly incapable of it, particularly when it comes to guns.

Vermont AFL-CIO Says No To Gun Control

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Organized labor traditionally aligns itself with Democrats, which means many unions end up supporting anti-gun candidates even if gun ownership is common among members themselves. You might see a union pay lip service to supporting the Second Amendment, but rarely does a labor union ever vocally oppose a specific gun control bill or an anti-gun ideology.

That’s not the case in Vermont, however, where the state affiliate of the AFL-CIO has declared its opposition to gun control, though not necessarily in language that’s often spoken by conservative Second Amendment activists.

The resolution asserts the right of self-defense for organized labor, arguing that people of color, immigrants, and working-class people are “most at risk of attacks by fascists, white supremacists, and individual extremists.”

The resolution passed by the vote of elected delegates representing 11,000 workers at the Vermont AFL-CIO’s 2021 Convention. It references the Black Panther Party, anti-apartheid struggles in South Africa, and the Zapatista uprising in Mexico as examples of the need for working people to take up armed self-defense.

“Organized Labor must not rely on the armed wing of the Government to defend democracy,” the resolution declares, citing the Jan. 6, 2021 incident on the U.S. Capitol as an indication of the necessity to not rely upon the state for protection against “fascists.”

Clearly this isn’t about conservative union members sending a message to Big Labor. I mean, in addition to supporting the Second Amendment and opposing gun control because of concerns about fascists and white supremacists, the Vermont AFL-CIO delegates also endorsed a resolution calling for a Green New Deal, self-determination for Puerto Rico, and recognition of the “Rojava revolution” in Syria.

However, the union’s resolution also differs from most of the anti-gun control arguments that we’ve seen from the Left since the start of the Defund the Police movement, which generally center around the overpolicing and overincarceration that comes from gun control but don’t actually express support for the right to keep and bear arms.

No, this is a genuine pro-Second Amendment stance, albeit one based on a far-Left point of view that isn’t often heard in 2A circles. And while I’m not on board with the political philosophy espoused by the AFL-CIO’s Vermont chapter, I’m happy to see their support for our individual rights.

I would, however, offer my pro-gun friends in the Green Mountain State a little history about what happens to our right to keep and bear arms when socialists aren’t the plucky underdog but actually have control over a State.

The Bolshevik Revolution put an end to the free circulation of guns among the general public. The leaders of the uprising knew only too well what the masses were capable of, especially if armed up to the teeth, and moved to monopolize gun ownership.

In 1918 the Bolsheviks initiated a large scale confiscation of civilian firearms, outlawing their possession and threatening up to 10 years in prison for concealing a gun.

The only exception was made for hunters who were allowed to possess smoothbore weapons. Gun licenses, however, were strictly regulated and only issued by the NKVD, the police organization known for its role in Joseph Stalin’s political purges.

It wasn’t just the Soviet Union. China’s had its own restrictive gun laws for decades, and they’ve only gotten worse over time.

Gun control was introduced in 1966, after children aiming a Spanish rifle at sparrows near Tiananmen Square shot out a window in the Great Hall of the People, according to an official history of the Ministry of Public Security. Authorities grew more vigilant after the violently suppressed pro-democracy demonstrations of 1989, and after rapid economic growth began to spur social tensions.

The government imposed the current rules in 1996, forbidding the private manufacture, sale, transport, possession, import or export of bullets and guns, including replicas.

Possession of a single gun is grounds for a prison sentence of as long as three years, and the penalty for a gun crime often is execution. In July, a Shanghai man drew a prison sentence of 12 years, and his wife 11 years, for possessing three guns and 600,000 bullets, plus peddling weapons on the Internet.

It’s also illegal for civilians to possess firearms in the Communist nations of Vietnam and North Korea, and while Cuba technically allows some gun ownership under tight controls, in reality it’s virtually impossible for the average citizen to legally possess a firearm.

Again, I’m glad to see the Vermont AFL-CIO take a stand in support of the right to keep and bear arms, but I do hope they’ll do more research on what happened to the ability of the working class to defend themselves after the vanguard of the revolution were firmly embedded as leaders of a socialist state. Capitalism isn’t a perfect system, but I’d argue that historically, it’s been far better for our individual rights (including our right to keep and bear arms) than those countries toiling under socialism.

From our own current political standpoint, however, I think this is a positive development in terms of the gun control debate. The fact is that the Left has its own arguments supporting the right to keep and bear arms, and while Democrats love to dismiss gun owners as “tools of the gun lobby,” it’s a little harder for them to accuse their own left flank of doing the bidding of the capitalist gun makers. For the moment, it’s easy enough for most Democrats to ignore what a small state’s AFL-CIO affiliate is saying, but if more unions make similar declarations of support for the right to keep and bear arms, tuning them out may not be an option.

Stolen Gun Linked To 27 Chicago Shootings

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The city of Chicago is a rough place these days. Violence still dominates the local headlines, all while officials try to push more gun control laws and then blame every other state for their lax gun law. It’s never anything they did or didn’t do, after all. Someone else must be to blame.

And, I can make a valid case that they’re not wrong. It’s just usually not the people Chicago officials want to blame.

The Chicago Tribune has an interesting story kind of illustrating some of the problems.

With the solid crack of a crowbar, the hooded burglar sent the showcase glass showering onto the gun shop’s floor and quickly swept several pistols into his shoulder bag.

Among the cache that New Year’s morning at a northern Wisconsin gun shop was a lightweight 9mm handgun with a black polymer grip, a black steel slide and a 4½ inch barrel.

On one side was the stamp of the handgun’s unique serial number: YZC020. On the other, the logo of one of the most profitable and ubiquitous firearms companies in the world: Glock.

The Austrian handgun, a model 17, had been imported to the company’s Smyrna, Georgia, plant and then shipped to the gun shop, where it was to be sold for as much as $400.

In little over a month it was on the streets of Chicago, where it would be fired over and over and over, linked to some 27 shootings before it was taken off the streets. An extended magazine, which increases firepower, was attached.

All told, two dozen people were shot during its use here in a handful of Chicago neighborhoods, two of them killed. A cluster of shootings took place in North Lawndale on the West Side, for example, with three on one block alone.

So yeah, it’s someone else’s fault. It’s the criminals’ fault, not the law-abiding gun store that was victimized nor the state of Wisconsin, much less Indiana, Georgia, or any of a number of other states that get blamed for the violence occurring elsewhere in the country.

This was a stolen firearm, taken unlawfully from a licensed dealer who tried to do everything right with regard to the law. Still, the bad guys got a gun.

A single gun linked to 27 shootings in Chicago and two homicides. Correction: A single stolen gun.

That’s the message that Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and others in the city need to take to heart. While straw buys happen, sure, most guns used by criminals were stolen from law-abiding owners or gun stores. These are victims of the crime, not perpetrators.

Invariably, though, the “solutions” proposed by people like Lightfoot is to make it harder for the good guys, not the bad guys.

After all, what background checks would stop a stolen gun from changing hands? FOID card requirements sure don’t seem to help. In fact, none of the plethoras of gun laws on the books in Illinois did jack to stop this gun from changing hands. Not a one.

That’s because the black market doesn’t play those games. If you’ve got the money, you can get a gun. Plain and simple.

If we were fortunate, this would wake some of the anti-Second Amendment advocates in Illinois up and make them realize that the problem is with criminals doing criminal things, not what the law-abiding do. Unfortunately, too many of these people are absolute zealots who mistakenly believe they’re the reasonable ones.