Gun turn in program. The law of unintended consequences.

While perusing the news today when I got home from work I found something that made me smile so I figured I would share it with you. In Chicago they have a gun buy back program where they will give you money for your gun in the form of a visa debit card. By using American Ingenuity and causing everyone to laugh at the people who actually thought criminals would turn in their guns for a couple hundred bucks, a pro-gun group has used the money they got for selling broken guns back to the city to host a youth shooting camp.

That's right, they sold old busted guns one of which was held together with duck tape, literally, and used the funds for an NRA sponsored event to teach kids about the joys of shooting and the safety precautions and safe handling of firearms.

Wonder what Rahm Emanuel thinks of this?
They turned in 60 guns to get $6,240 in visa gift cards that they then turned around and purchased guns and ammo they used to hold the event. Somewhere there is a Brady crying.

"Guns Save Life," based in Champaign, Ill., recently sold 60 firearms to the Chicago Police Department -- 10 of which were manufactured before 1898 -- in exchange for $6,240 in gift cards, according to group president John Boch. The sale also included five BB guns and a rickety pump-action shotgun that was held together by duct tape and zip ties, he said.

The cops they turned them into apparently weren't impressed. However they still went along and made the transactions. The only problem I see with this is the guns made before 1898 could possibly have been collectors items if someone had put the time and money in to restore them. However, I don't know what kind of shape they were in, I just don't like seeing antique guns get destroyed like I know these were. However they did serve a great purpose.

Chicago's gun turn-in program, dubbed "Don't Kill a Dream, Save a Life," was implemented with the goal of removing dangerous weapons from the street. The program claims on its website that a "gun in the home is more likely to be used in a homicide, suicide or unintentional shooting than in self-defense." The initiative cites alarming statistics on its website to bolster its argument -- such as the claim that "States with the highest levels of gun ownership have 114 percent higher firearm homicide rates and 60 percent higher homicide rates than states with the lowest gun ownership."

The police department accused Boch's group of "abusing" a program intended to fight Chicago's crime rate.

 

Somehow I don't think that places like Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, and other states with extremely high gun ownership rate don't come anywhere near the violence that meets places such as Detroit, DC, NY, LA, or Chicago. You know the places with the harshest gun control laws.

 

Granted New Orleans and Houston do have some problems, I am not denying that. However the number of gun control laws on the books in the other places with higher murder rates dwarfs those in the south. Then again maybe it's just a big city thing. Country folks don't seem to have a problem with the guns they own. Maybe someone should look into that.