Though I'd amuse you all with this tale and seek any comments/concerns/criticizms.
I have lamented in my area of CA there has not been a "buyback" as of late. I have as most people who are really into guns some real trash that is not worth repairing or salvaging. The last buyback though was like 10 years ago and lime all you got for turning in a gun was a turkey!
Well since I live like within 5-10 miles from the infamous city of Compton CA, which has had like 69 homicides in the last year, third in number in the nation in a 4 square mile city, the sheriffs dept as a feel good measure announced a no questions asked gun exchange.
Turn in a FUNCTIONAL firearm (darn! and do zip guns count
) and get a $100 gift card to circuit city or Ralphs grocery store. Found out about first gun exchange too late though local news coverage was a riot. One guy mentioned he was turning them in honor of Tookie! Of course the coverage was real anti gun and full of typos like .7mm handgun(even if actual 7mm handgun was turned in, the only ones that come to mind like some contenders and a Baby Nambu are worth well more than $100) and .9mm weapons and 38mm handguns.
The "38mm" handgun looked like a Webley or Enfield which I would have given $125 for And in the newsphotos some of those guns had a street value of much more even if illegal in my area(like Tec 9 and a m1 carbine enforcer) I seriously doubt the local stick up men and drug dealers were turning in their weaponry for groceries.
Anyways my luck changed as some more sponsors for another buyback on Christmas eve came up. So off I went with my dad and sis and three handguns, a jam o matic Ruby Spanish 32 acp with only Spain and a serial # as markings and a poor reblue, a quite poor condition Colt officers model 38 spl revolver with a severly cracked and chipped forcimng cone(still felt guilty though) and a Chinese Tokarev missing it's grips and the hammer would not stay cocked but still sort of worked
Got there early, parking lot of shopping center with 3 sherrifs officers and a trailer. One business owner pissed because they took a lot of the parking with no warning. I fgured the sheriffs told him to call the police then I would have been pissed too.
Not too many people at first, girl drove up and asked what was being given away, I explained to her and told her to come back with a gun, she seemd a little perplexed! I don't like to stereotype, in fact long ago my mother was born in Compton, but I could tell some of the people waiting were not Compton people, especially the middle aged to older white men with multiple guns who looked disappointed when it was told only one gift card per person.
Gentleman in front of me had a crudely sawn off singel barrel 12 gauge single shot wrapped in a towel. Most of the other guns were similar, it was hard to see and I wasn't really suppose to hang around but it was mostly rusty junk and stuff like Marlin 60's and single barrel shotguns, jennings and such. Though I did spy a Remington mod 12 22lr pump I'd like to have had.
The real winner was a nice MaK 90 Chinese AK clone! Illegal in CA unless registered in 2000 but I'm sure worth more on the street. I guess though it pissed me off, if the guy was law abiding or scared it made sense as the only other legal option would be to drive it to NV or AZ and sell it to a FFL dealer and get like $200 or so, not worth the gas and the legal trouble if pulled over. There is 100 million AKs in the world but what a shame! The sheriffs and the media must have had a field day with that one!
Cops were being kind of unfriendly, who wants to work on Xmas eve I guess and they were showing the "civilians" how tough they were with their "command presence" and all those guns were probably making them nervous, good thing they were getting them "off the streets"
I made a point to say good morning, turned in my Ruby no problem and the cop asked me what card I wanted(I chose groceries and ended up buying a box of wine among other things!) They took the Colt from my dad too but turned down the Tokarev as it had no "firing pin" according to the cop who begrudgingly gave it back to my sis(some people still turned in multiple guns or stuff that was broken, why not wait until another buyback?) Said merry Christmas to the cops and left.
Read the local paper yesterday, of course the article was antigun and mainly rehashed from the last article. I had hoped the media would question me, I planned on telling them the money I saved from not having to buy groceries I planned on spending on a better quality firearm which is actually kind of true as I've been buying a lot of guns lately.
Paper mentined that checks would be run on the guns. Why? They were turned in no questions asked(I'd like to have shown up with a deactivated RPG or something!) and I made sure to wipe my prints off them though I had done nothing illegal with them, it was none of their business where the guns came from. So they run ballistics on those guns and find one was used in a crime, how you going to find who turned them in, so silly.
Well I hope you found this interesting and I hope you don't think I'm antigun or something, why not make the anti gunners waste their funds on someone like me after all. Also I thought of offering folks $50 for thier gifts cards, after all you can't buy crack with a gift card but I thought better of it and even some of the drug people turning in guns I hope they used the card for a good purpose.
I have lamented in my area of CA there has not been a "buyback" as of late. I have as most people who are really into guns some real trash that is not worth repairing or salvaging. The last buyback though was like 10 years ago and lime all you got for turning in a gun was a turkey!
Well since I live like within 5-10 miles from the infamous city of Compton CA, which has had like 69 homicides in the last year, third in number in the nation in a 4 square mile city, the sheriffs dept as a feel good measure announced a no questions asked gun exchange.
Turn in a FUNCTIONAL firearm (darn! and do zip guns count
) and get a $100 gift card to circuit city or Ralphs grocery store. Found out about first gun exchange too late though local news coverage was a riot. One guy mentioned he was turning them in honor of Tookie! Of course the coverage was real anti gun and full of typos like .7mm handgun(even if actual 7mm handgun was turned in, the only ones that come to mind like some contenders and a Baby Nambu are worth well more than $100) and .9mm weapons and 38mm handguns.The "38mm" handgun looked like a Webley or Enfield which I would have given $125 for
And in the newsphotos some of those guns had a street value of much more even if illegal in my area(like Tec 9 and a m1 carbine enforcer) I seriously doubt the local stick up men and drug dealers were turning in their weaponry for groceries. Anyways my luck changed as some more sponsors for another buyback on Christmas eve came up. So off I went with my dad and sis and three handguns, a jam o matic Ruby Spanish 32 acp with only Spain and a serial # as markings and a poor reblue, a quite poor condition Colt officers model 38 spl revolver with a severly cracked and chipped forcimng cone(still felt guilty though) and a Chinese Tokarev missing it's grips and the hammer would not stay cocked but still sort of worked
Got there early, parking lot of shopping center with 3 sherrifs officers and a trailer. One business owner pissed because they took a lot of the parking with no warning. I fgured the sheriffs told him to call the police then
I would have been pissed too.Not too many people at first, girl drove up and asked what was being given away, I explained to her and told her to come back with a gun, she seemd a little perplexed! I don't like to stereotype, in fact long ago my mother was born in Compton, but I could tell some of the people waiting were not Compton people, especially the middle aged to older white men with multiple guns who looked disappointed when it was told only one gift card per person.
Gentleman in front of me had a crudely sawn off singel barrel 12 gauge single shot wrapped in a towel. Most of the other guns were similar, it was hard to see and I wasn't really suppose to hang around but it was mostly rusty junk and stuff like Marlin 60's and single barrel shotguns, jennings and such. Though I did spy a Remington mod 12 22lr pump I'd like to have had.
The real winner was a nice MaK 90 Chinese AK clone! Illegal in CA unless registered in 2000 but I'm sure worth more on the street. I guess though it pissed me off, if the guy was law abiding or scared it made sense as the only other legal option would be to drive it to NV or AZ and sell it to a FFL dealer and get like $200 or so, not worth the gas and the legal trouble if pulled over. There is 100 million AKs in the world but what a shame! The sheriffs and the media must have had a field day with that one!
Cops were being kind of unfriendly, who wants to work on Xmas eve I guess and they were showing the "civilians" how tough they were with their "command presence" and all those guns were probably making them nervous, good thing they were getting them "off the streets"
I made a point to say good morning, turned in my Ruby no problem and the cop asked me what card I wanted(I chose groceries and ended up buying a box of wine among other things!) They took the Colt from my dad too but turned down the Tokarev as it had no "firing pin" according to the cop who begrudgingly gave it back to my sis(some people still turned in multiple guns or stuff that was broken, why not wait until another buyback?) Said merry Christmas to the cops and left.
Read the local paper yesterday, of course the article was antigun and mainly rehashed from the last article. I had hoped the media would question me, I planned on telling them the money I saved from not having to buy groceries I planned on spending on a better quality firearm which is actually kind of true as I've been buying a lot of guns lately.
Paper mentined that checks would be run on the guns. Why? They were turned in no questions asked(I'd like to have shown up with a deactivated RPG or something!) and I made sure to wipe my prints off them though I had done nothing illegal with them, it was none of their business where the guns came from. So they run ballistics on those guns and find one was used in a crime, how you going to find who turned them in, so silly.
Well I hope you found this interesting and I hope you don't think I'm antigun or something, why not make the anti gunners waste their funds on someone like me after all. Also I thought of offering folks $50 for thier gifts cards, after all you can't buy crack with a gift card but I thought better of it and even some of the drug people turning in guns I hope they used the card for a good purpose.