Glad I went
Okay, almost blew this off, but decided I shouldn't have to be intimidated out of a lawful exchange. So I went. To try and make my presence "legit", I stopped at Wal-Mart and bought a toy pistol. They were accepting toys for turn in as well as real firearms. As it turned out, that was $6 I didn't need to spend. I'll be giving that to a neighbor's son.
The set up had the buy back at a church ( private property ). Was told once on the church property, I could not try to buy anyone's firearms. However, on the sidewalk that ran along the church property, the police had no problem with FTF buys. They ( police ) were very cordial to us. Zero harassment. In fact, when some vehicles pulled into the church driveway ( manned by a police officer ), he'd be giving the driver instructions, and we'd have our heads right next to theirs informing them of the better deal on the street. This caused some to make a U turn in the parking lot, and come back to the street and sell. Doing this got no grief from the police. I was pleasantly surprised.
I arrived 30 minutes after the thing started, and the church parking lot was already packed. The line to turn in firearms was almost around the building. This was partly due to them running out of the grocery gift cards ( this was not supposed to happen like it did the last time ). But they had more funds available & were off to get more of those cards.
Anyway, there were already about half a dozen other "buyers" along the sidewalk. Most had signs about CASH +10% over what the city was offering. And there was the added bonus of not standing in that line ( That got a lot of folks to pull over & deal ). It was also trying to rain. Standing in line in the wet also helped us.
I must say, almost all the guns I looked at were crap. A few were borderline, but not what I'd buy. There was one Taurus 83 revolver that was pretty nice. But another guy had 1st refusal, and he bought it. There was a small "group" that per the conversations on the sidewalk, were funded by some anonymous wealthy pro 2A guy in San Antonio. They would buy ANYTHING that functioned. The 'lead' guy had the trunk of his car STUFFED with guns. Supposedly, these guns were going to be given to poor folks that wanted. but could not afford guns. Pretty cool if all true. It made it nice to look at someone's POS ( in my opinion ), tell them it was not something I'd be interested in, but point that guy out to them, and he'd buy their POS. Everybody seemed to be driving away happy.
Did I get a deal there? Yes. I'd figured before I left home, I'd be offering double to make a deal ( city $100 gift card=me $200 cash ). But everybody had signs +10%. And that seemed to be enough to sway the sellers. So I went with the program & offered the $110 on an excellent Mossberg 500 with the 20" barrel & 8 shot tube. It's now in the safe
Tuckerdog1
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