Police departments all over the nation routinely encounter firearms in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. They’re sometimes good guns, but sometimes they aren’t. It doesn’t matter, though, because they’re treated the same. The departments seize the guns. They take them away.

That, of course, leads to the thorny issue of disposal.

Many departments sell the guns to local licensed gun dealers. This allowed the firearms to get sold to people who pass the relevant background checks.

Others…don’t. One such city is Flint, Michigan.

The city has delivered a load of 384 guns to an incineration facility, following up on an initiative announced in late July by Mayor Sheldon Neeley.

The city announced the disposal delivery in a news release Tuesday, Sept. 1, diverting the weapons from auctions where they had been sold previously.

“I am proud of our city for taking this strong stance as part of our overall fight to reduce gun violence,” Police Chief Terence Green said in a statement issued by the city. “It’s good to be home and doing police work in the city I know and love.”

Congratulations, Chief Green. You’ve successfully made your city less safe.

“But how? Now those icky guns aren’t on the streets where they can be used for further criminal activity,” someone might argue, and they’re sorta kinda right. Those guns aren’t on the streets.

However, they weren’t going to go back to criminals. They were going to be sold to law-abiding citizens. Since they would be used firearms bought at auction, they’d likely be guns sold at a deep discount, thus making them more affordable to the economically challenged.

Those would be the same economically challenged individuals that are often forced to live in high-crime neighborhoods and are far more likely to be the victim of a violent crime than most other members of society. By making it more expensive for them to arm themselves–decreasing the supply of inexpensive guns isn’t going to make it easier for them to buy firearms, after all–you’ve now empowered criminals to worry less about their likely prey.

Good job, dipsticks.

See, measures like this don’t actually accomplish anything except allowing those involved in the decision to pat themselves on the back and pretend they’ve actually accomplished something good. It’s not really a virtue signal, mostly because I think they actually believe this will do some good, but it is the sad result of what happens when politicians and officials don’t actually understand the subject at hand.

Now, the people of Flint, MI will have fewer low-cost firearms available to them, especially at a time when guns are a bit harder to come by in some places. These good and decent folks will be left defenseless against the criminal element that seeks to exploit them, and people like Chief Green are applauding themselves for putting these folks in this position.

Needless to say, it makes me sick. Honestly, these people will have blood on their hands because they’re quick to make it harder on those poor, decent folks who just want to live their lives.

Yet this is what you see in cities like Flint. Is it any wonder their water system got jacked up?