Arizona GOP blocks gun buyback programs, because neener neener.

[後援会]

Good. Gun buybacks are useless anyways.

[後援会]

Good. Gun buybacks are useless anyways.

I wish I could understand the desire for government action based on "haha, what now, losers!" I mean, I'm a pretty bitter jerk sometimes, but not even I could imagine projecting my own completely baseless personal kneejerk reactions onto acts of public policy.

Except they're not baseless. Your knee-jerk support of feel-good programs is coming off as far more baseless.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/29/gun-buybacks-mostly-a-waste-of-time-and-money-experts-say.html

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/12/gun-buybacks-popular-but-ineffective/1829165/

http://www.npr.org/2013/01/15/169439243/newtown-prompts-gun-buybacks-but-do-they-work

http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/13/04/04/do-gun-buybacks-reduce-gun-violence/

I can go on and on. I don't agree with the whole "get rid of all government programs" sentiment, but if we can use that as an excuse to kill stupid programs, I'm all for it.

Though there is probably a farcical element to this all. Who is buying guns from buy-backs? Most of those guns are probably already effectively destroyed.

[後援会]

Welcome back to the Forum, koenkai!!!

Thanks. Got busy, but I have maybe two weeks to kill, so yeah.

Anyways, I think there's this assumption that if $xxx does something, $ (1000) * xxx will do 1000 times what it did. That does not seem accurate. Like any market, the amount of people willing to sell (their gun) are limited. If I had good reason to believe that I would be using my gun in the future, I probably wouldn't be bringing it to a gun buyback unless I already didn't want it. Gun buybacks are great at getting unwanted or broken guns out of people's attics, but it doesn't seem like you'll be getting the guns actually used for crimes unless you're willing to offer a huge price for them, at which point there are far better uses for that money - like hiring more police or fighting poverty.