Saturday, December 7, 2019

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle asks: What ever happened to the NYC gun buyback program?

It has been said that the only stupid question is the one that isn't asked. Well, the originator of that old saw was wrong: Some questions really are asinine or simply answer themselves and a truly sterling example of both cases simultaneously can be found here:

From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle: What happened to gun buybacks in New York City?                                                                           December 4, 2019 by Noah Goldberg

The very notion of offering a gun buyback program in the hopes of criminals being tempted to turn over their guns for $200, no questions asked, requires one to be clinically brain dead to actually believe that this program would work for the intended purpose. Would a plumber or mechanic turn over the tools of his trade to the city for $200 even if he in fact paid far less for them? Or would the plumber or mechanic reason that he could make more than $200 in a single day's work with his tools?

This questions answers itself and when we consider that a gun is the tool of a criminal's trade and even the dumbest criminal would realize he can make more in one "job" with the gun than a lousy $200. Nor would a criminal be inclined to believe the police or politicians about the "no questions asked" amnesty proviso. So why would any criminal participate in a gun buyback program even if he fully believed and trusted the authorities about the "no questions asked" amnesty policy and got the cash in hand as he walked out of the police precinct?

Now to be fair to Noah Goldberg, he did write that some experts- academics and former officials did view the program as a PR piece and he did give the believers in the gun buyback issue their say as well. All in all a balanced article even if the proponents could offer little more than some platitudes and unsubstantiated claims of lives saved. I do not take seriously the gun-grabbing, social justice  evangelicuck of the so-called "God Squad".

Maybe it could only be my own bias at work, but it did appear the author did lean more to the useless PR side of the issue the quote from Prof. Christopher Herman supports my earlier observation regarding the buyback. And Goldberg would be right to be suspicious of NYPD numbers especially after NYPD refused to allow an interview with a Chief who played a major role in the program, comment on it or provide the supporting stats. I know why.

The reader will have to take my word on this and it is a personal and anecdotal observation but the guns turned in were mostly the rusty, broken, old guns that grandpa bought back in the day and lay for years forgotten in the back of a closet after the old fellow passed away. It was a chance to clear an old piece of junk out of the closet and better than a yard or garage sale where you got a nice payday from it. The NYPD uses a very generous definition of "working" as "might work" as all the pieces are there if not exactly attached to the gun and if the shooter were not worried about the gun blowing up if he tried to fire it. The reason less guns were turned in then of course is because most people already cleared the junky, old guns out of their closets and garages.

So why, if it's even obvious to Goldberg that the gun buyback program is largely useless in the face of a recent increase in shootings, does he ask this question? The answer is to promote the darker program of "red flag" laws where psychics foresee the future and predict through spectral evidence who, usually some white guy, will commit a mass shooting crime. You know, like in Minority Report.

That is when city officials are not too busy persecuting and prosecuting someone for calling an illegal immigrant an "illegal alien", telling the illegal to "go back where they come from" and threatening to report the illegal to ICE. Unacceptable!

If the shootings are committed by "people of color", we are expected to only worry about the lack of nearby hospitals with trauma centers so gangbangers' lives can be saved and nursed back to health as quickly as possible so they can get back to work. No "red flag" laws invoked here, you racists.

This is also the city that is extremely concerned about drug addicts overdosing, having access to clean needles and a city-operated safe space where they can shoot up with free smack under proper medical supervision. Where would modern society be without drug addicts?

Fair is foul and foul is fair in this sick, twisted liberal city where the dregs of society are extolled, cherished and adored and working people are expected to toe their master's line and pay for it- or else. And we're most worried about other than people of color with guns or someone vaping or smoking a cigarette. Long live anarcho-tyranny!

Donald Cavaioli

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