The term "buyback," when talking about guns, is always a little problematic. After all, how can the government or some charity buy back something that was never theirs? It's more than a little Orwellian, really, because the attempted implication is real.
But few things are funnier than when a decent-sized community holds a "buyback," and no one shows up.
You see it pretty regularly, too. A community of a hundred thousand or even more, and a couple dozen guns, tops.
Like, for example, this one from Maui.
Maui residents surrendered nearly 40 firearms and 58 pounds of illegal fireworks at a community buyback event Saturday in Kahului, according to the state Department of Law Enforcement.
The Maui Police Department hosted the buyback with the state Department of Law Enforcement and Honolulu Police Department. Participants received Foodland gift cards for surrendering firearms and fireworks.
"These unwanted guns and fireworks will never again be used. They will never again pose any type of threat to a loved one or have an opportunity to be used in a crime. Every weapon turned in counts," department Director Jared Redulla said in a news release.
Looking at one of the photos of the guns turned in, it's hard not to get a little angry since it looks like a Luger got tossed in with the rest. There was also a nice-looking High Power, a couple of 1911s, and a single-action revolver in among the other handguns.
It should be noted, though, that numerous studies have been conducted on the efficacy of so-called buybacks, and the one thing they all seem to agree on is that these kinds of events never actually make anyone safer.
That's probably even more true of illegal fireworks, which shouldn't be illegal because 'Merica.
Since this is Maui, I tried to work in a joke about "What can I say except you're welcome" or something, but nah. I'll call this good, because there's nothing these kinds of events do that should be welcome. At least one historical firearm was in that bin to be disposed of. I have no idea of the ages of the others I mentioned, but they could well be old enough to have some history, too.
And they'll be destroyed because people like Redulla and his bosses think guns are the problem instead of looking a little deeper.
I'll grant them a little grace based on this:
Firearm serial numbers will be checked, and the last known registered owners will be notified by mail, according to the department.
If people get their guns back, awesome. That's a good thing, and if this is more common than I believe, the authorities hosting these need to own up to that. It'll get a lot of people off their backs just a bit about such events.
Not much, though, because they're still stupid.
They're gun disposal events, but they don't make anyone safer.
And for a community of over 150,000 people, "nearly 40 firearms" is laughable. Looking at the guns in the one picture we can see, none of them look much like your typical gang-banger guns. That's because the only way someone like that takes part in one of these events is to dump a gun and get it out of their hands.
Then we have the fact that even when thousands of guns are taken in, there is still no link between these events and a reduction in so-called gun crime. It just doesn't happen, no matter how much people want it to be otherwise. You can't manifest something different into existence just because you really, really want to. If you could, why not just manifest people being less likely to shoot one another over petty bullcrap?
Yes, I know, I'm slaughtering some anti-gun sacred cows.
What can I say except, "You're welcome."
