Arizona on verge of turning gun buybacks into revenue

A major argument against gun buybacks has been that they are too expensive. Arizona may have solved that problem in a most controversial way.

The Arizona state Senate voted to prohibit the destruction of firearms gathered by cities and counties. Instead, municipalities will be required to sell the firearms to recoup buyback costs.

The only thing that could prevent the bill from becoming law is gun rights proponent Governor Jan Brewer. While no comment has come from the Governor’s office, a veto is unlikely.

Democrats are feverishly attempting to sway public opinion against the bill. Democratic State Senator Steve Gillardo argued that Arizona already has “the most liberal gun laws in the nation and that has to stop.” Clearly no friend to gun rights, Sen. Gillardo had proposed numerous amendments to the gun buy back bill including one limiting magazine sizes. All of which failed.

Nationally, the gun debate has taken odd turns as liberals have even sought to make the Boston Massacre into a second amendment issue. Actor Jay Mohr tweeted on Wednesday that the bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon is reason to remove American’s rights to protect themselves.

Since explosives are already illegal, the logic of Mr. Mohr’s statement is difficult to defend.

Ignorance about the repercussions of gun control is becoming more evident. News reports have shown that people will move to confiscate guns even when told that criminals would still have them.

Even when authorities decide to confiscate guns, they are unable to. In California, while spending way too much time deciding which guns law-abiding citizens should have, they’ve been unable to get guns out of the hands of those clearly identified (by law) as unable to possess firearms as the state has “a backlog of nearly 20,000 people to disarm”, says Stephen Lindley, chief of the Bureau of Firearms for the state Department of Justice.

Maybe Arizona’s Republican Senators are on to something. If citizens want to turn in their guns for a tiny payout, the return on investment could be great for municipalities. It’s kind of a second hand store for guns where the original owner is willing to take next to nothing for the firearm and maybe those wanting to hang on to their second amendment rights can get a good deal. Unfortunately, criminals don’t tend to turn in guns the rest of America actually wants to buy.