We found that gun buyback programs have not shown to be effective….They’re rifles, shotguns, things like that. Less likely to be small handguns, which are really more likely the types of guns to be used in gun crime.

Matthew Makarios, assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Wisconsin Parkside

The above quote was found in one of the local TV station’s investigation into the effectiveness of gun buybacks.

From the article:

We found that the vast majority of guns turned in aren’t the type of weapons typically used in crimes. We also found many cases where people turned in BB and pellet guns, guns that were visibly broken, and even a flare gun.

At two Clearwater Police Department buybacks in 2011, 20% of the guns turned in were BB and pellet guns. The Largo Police Department held their buybacks jointly with Clearwater, and 12% of the guns they took in were BB or pellet guns.

If this was a private organization sponsoring these gun buybacks, I really wouldn’t care. The problems is that it’s the local law enforcement agencies. That’s my money being used to buy and then dispose of those guns. Why should I be forced to pay for a program that doesn’t accomplish its stated goal and serves little point except for propaganda for gun control and the police?

What’s worse is some of these people are selling their property at far below their value in this gun market when they could really use the money. On a purely anecdotal basis, I told one of my co-workers about the buyback and she wanted to take some unused guns down. I convinced her not to and to let me take a look at them. I was pretty sure she could get more for them than what was being offered.

If we’re going to have a gun buyback, shouldn’t they at least be forced to pay market value? Kind of make it like Antiques Roadshow, the firearms edition.