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Sometimes unintended consequences are beautiful things to behold. Take, for instance, Colorado’s recently-passed, MAIG-managed gun control laws. Two fun side-effects have been the schadenfreude-rich upcoming recall elections a couple of the state’s most ardent gun-grabbers are now facing…otherwise known as just desserts. But wait, there’s more! One of the new requirements foisted on Centennial State People of the Gun is that every firearms transfer now has to be made via an FFL. Simple common sense, right? Well, yes, if you’re of that particular rights-abrogating bent. Only one problem with that — if you want to conduct some useless security theater the civic-minded gesture of letting felons dump evidence for cash taking guns off the street through a buyback, you’re now SOL . . .

D’oh!

Organizers have canceled a gun buyback at the request of Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle, who said Colorado’s new gun laws would make the Aug. 4 event nearly impossible to stage.

“The bottom line is what we anticipated doing would still be legal — but procedurally we can’t follow through with it at this time,” Pelle said Tuesday.

That procedural SNAFU is commonly known as a NICS check, as provided by an FFL.

“It’s not a portable system,” Pelle said. “It can’t be done at the site.”

Really? No cell phone coverage in Boulder? Or is there another problem the sheriff ran into?

Essentially, for the event to work, Pelle said the group would have to find a licensed firearms dealer to host the event and then pay the dealer per transaction, “which becomes very unproductive,” he said.

In other words, local FFLs told them to GTFO. Or wanted to charge them at least $50 per transfer, which would render the economics of a gun buyback as “unproductive” as, say, the federal budget.

Event organizers had planned to give gift cards or tickets to sporting events to people who turned in firearms. Students raised nearly $8,000 to purchase the incentives.

The idea was to collect guns and then immediately hand them over to the Sheriff’s Office for destruction. Some of the remnants of the destroyed firearms would then be passed along to Boulder-area metalworking artist Jessica Adams to use for a sculpture aimed at creating gun violence awareness.

Hold on. I have to wipe away a tear. There. That’s better.

So while Boulder will suffer the heartbreak of a cancelled buyback, Sheriff Pelle’s consoling himself in the knowledge that the enhanced background check system is now in place, keeping Coloradans safe.

While he said he understands organizers may be disappointed, he said the “larger good” is accomplished by the background check requirement.

Here’s a shocker: Sheriff Pelle’s not one of the group of Colorado sheriffs suing to overturn the anti-2A legislation. But you probably already knew that. [h/t Edward I.]

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78 COMMENTS

    • Of course they didn’t have a loophole for buybacks. These are the same types who didn’t make a carve out for police to purchase magazines in New York.

      • Much like the LEO carve-out in New York, doing that would have required them to know what was in the bill before they passed it.

        Proof again that when you try to rush shit through (because you know that’s the only way you can get it passed), things get missed. If there had been the normal amount of debate and review before they passed this bill, someone would have said, “Hey, guys, we missed something here…”

  3. You think that douche has enough stars on his collar? Last time I checked, he’s not a General of anything.

  4. I give him credit for placing the law ahead of an agenda.. I was so sad, I had to pop a few bottles of beer of this. Oh wait, no I am supposed to be sad, but then again the Sheriff is just doing his job lol

  6. A few months ago I had these two old junk shotguns laying around and I ended up selling the pair for $100. I was kinda hoping Pueblo or CO Springs would do a buyback just so I could get twice what they were actually worth, then laugh in their faces right after. And while I was there I’d try to save as many guns as possible either for myself or just telling everyone what their guns were actually worth (assuming they were legally owned).

  7. TO: All
    RE: Boulder PD….

    ….is the laughing stock of Colorado Law Enforcement.

    After the Jon Benet Ramsey murder fiasco where the police were searching the house for the ‘missing’—actually murdered—little girl asked to go into the locked basement and the husband told them…..”There’s nothing down there.” So the police walked past where the dead little girl was secreted.

    The Ramseys got away from the Law.

    But they won’t get away from God.

    Regards,

    Chuck(le)
    [The Truth will out….but maybe not in THIS ‘venue’…..]

    • Patsy got away with. But that’s changed by now. The evidence is SO persuasive she killed Jon Benet.

  8. If they have an FFL at a buyback, if their is something of value you could buy it right there and laugh in their faces.

      • Or just switch guns? Hey, they’re all going to grinder anyway. “Here, let me hold yours while you hold mine.” It would be like a swap meet.

  9. AH HA HA HA HA HA!!! AHA HA HA HA! Oh, man, that is freakin’ hilarious! Boulder is dumb.

    • You took the “ah-hahahahaha!” right out of my mouth.

      Note to Boulder’s sheriff and the anti-gun coalition in Colorado: the rest of the nation is laughing AT you, not with you.

  10. Who in the hell is not yet “aware” that gun violence exists? And do you really think they’re going to become “aware” if you make a statue from recycled firearm parts to raise “gun violence awareness”? Are they going to see your silly little statue and have some epiphany? Suddenly join your ranks in fighting “gun violence”?

    NO! There’s nobody you’re going to convert to the cause. You’re just having a big self congratulatory kumbaya session with all you’re brain dead liberal friends, thinking your saving the world from “gun violence” when all you’re doing is proving to everybody what a bunch of twits you all are.

    How did these morons ever get a guy in the White House?

        • That didn’t help either. My original comment was a bit misleading, shouldn’t have said ‘unity in the black vote’ because traditionally blacks tend to vote democrat. I guess ‘a substantial jump in numbers of blacks voting’ would have been more appropriate. And of course the repubs didn’t exactly set themselves up for success…

    • I beg to differ about “gun violence” existing that just a made up term. No one suffers from “hammer violence” or “baseball bat violence” its just violence the gun is only a tool and if it wasn’t that tool it would be a different on.

      • See, now THAT might actually work! I don’t think most people know that twice as many people are murdered in this country with hammers and baseball bats than rifles. How about taking broken baseball bats from your local MLB team’s pro shop and making a statue out of that to “raise awareness of bat violence”. That might actually open some eyes. How about the fact that 3 times as many murders are committed with bare hands. She could make a statue out of the severed hands of murderers who beat their victims to death. Now THAT’S a way to raise awareness.

    • Haven’t you learned anything from Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong crusade, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and the Stop Kony 2012 campaign?

      “Awareness” is magical, and enough of it can fix anything (especially the bank account of the awareness-raiser).

  11. Just one more example of libtards not thinking ahead….I can think of at least a few more examples, LMAO!

  12. The Boulder Police Department is indeed a laughingstock of Colorado law enforcement. When a real crime occurs they run around like Barney Fife, because the only thing they train for is how to write traffic tickets, raid college parties and bust pot smokers. And now they’re not even allowed to bust pot smokers.

    • Whatever happened to the couple who shot that drunk UC girl in Boulder? Perhaps the couple was about to turn in their pistols?

    • Don’t get me started on Stop Kony 2012. Guy hasn’t seen sighted in YEARS. Probably holed up… well, unfortunate term… with D.B. Cooper.

    • When a real crime occurs they run around like Barney Fife, because the only thing they train for is how to write traffic tickets, raid college parties and bust pot smokers.

      Don’t forget “poach elk in residential neighborhoods”.

  14. “… In other words, local FFLs told them to GTFO. …

    I’d like to believe that but I suspect there’s no shortage of suck-up kiss-ass FFLs available for anything the local LE cooks up.

    • If I were an ffl up there with a good sized of od have done it for a large fee per transfer, tell my customers to go turn in crap firearms for a gift card, and then use the profits from the transfers to offset the cost of a fire sale to get those customers tooled back up with the latest and greatest

  15. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahaha

    dumber than a box of er, Boulders

  17. I wouldn’t be surprised if they come up with some kind of work around, LE has access to NCIC which is basically what the NICS does. But it is ironic.

    • The new law requires that a background check be performed by “a licensed gun dealer”.

      Just having “access to NCIC which is basically what the NICS does” isn’t going to cut it.

      • Right……and when was the Affordable Health Care Act become law and take full effect? Seriously I hope they don’t try a workaround but just sayin I won’t be surprised if the law is ignored by those in power.

        • It’s not just “those in power” that would be breaking the law.

          If I take a firearm to the local Sheriff station and drop it off – without first getting an FFL to perform a background check (via the CBI) on whomever will be receiving that firearm – both I and the transferee are violating the new statute. I’m violating C.R.S. 18-12-112 (1)(a). The transferee is violating C.R.S. 18-12-112 (3)(a). It’s a class I misdemeanor, punishable by up to 18 months in the county jail. Bye-bye firearm possession right.

  18. Okay, someone please enlighten me. Every NICS check I’ve ever done through a dealer was to determine MY (i.e., the buyer’s) eligibility. I’ve always assumed that this is the case with universal NICS checks – the seller doesn’t get checked, the buyer does.

    So in one of these so-called gun “buybacks” the assumption is then that whoever receives the gun from the (hobo, collector offloading crap, felon offloading the murder weapon, etc.) is the “buyer”. But it’s a straw purchase – using money that doesn’t belong to the buyer, for a purchase that the buyer has no intention of keeping. Illegal as heck.

    Even if a felon turns in a gun, he’s not going to be checked, but the folks behind the table get checked over and over and over again. They also buy enough pistols to have to fill out that “more than three handguns” form. Several times. I’d think that would trigger some kind of Homeland Security watchlist thingy – after all a small group of liberals buying dozens of guns over a weekend must surely be up to no good – hopefully landing them on the “denied” list, and maybe even the “no fly” list, too.

    • You are suggesting that NICS should work like a TSA program. One check is good for a few years in the frequent flyer program. But the spirit of NICS is that the Boulder PD may have gone bad between transactions. Laugh.

  19. I would love to stand in front of the organizers and, in a very loud voice, say, “Ha ha!” like the character Nelson of the Simpsons animated television series.

    For those of you who have never heard the unique quality of Nelson’s antagonistic utterance, here it is:

  20. One has to wonder if they really believe that criminals exchange guns though legal means, or know, or care about what the laws regarding such transfers are. Personally, even if universal background checks were the law, it would be a law I’d commonly ignore in private transactions and somehow I don’t think I’m alone. If you wanted to sell your brother a gun, would you really opt for the background check? Now imagine how people who do such things as traffic in crack cocaine, shoot innocent people, rob houses and businesses feel about such a ridiculous law.
    The meme appears to be that criminals, who would otherwise be prohibited from buying a firearm, acquire them through private party sales thus avoiding the background check. If by this you mean that they buy them from the thief who stole them from someone’s home or the fence who bought the gun from the thief, or if you consider a drug dealer trading product to the thief for the gun then you’re right, they absolutely acquire them in private party transactions. If however anyone thinks that such people, given their lifestyles and proclivities are concerned about violation of a background check law, such a person is either being purposely obtuse, or suffering from such delusions such that reality does not enter into their consideration.
    To enter another realm of the issue, if one was, via legislation and enforcement (the latter seriously lacking as it were), able to cause the majority of people to give up their firearms, the number of stolen firearms entering the system would be diminished. However the value of any firearm ‘on the street’ would greatly increase. Aside from the obvious increase to the efforts of thieves to acquire the now considerably more lucrative item, thefts from police officers and vehicles are sure to increase.
    Often over looked are the social and economic ramifications of such a policy. In the real world, where a particular gun can be bought on the open market for $300 and sold for $3000 there will be a sizable traffic in guns from the legal to the illegal side of ownership.
    Any doubt about the above should be erased by a consideration of the narcotics trade. Where a kilo of 100% (or nearly) pure cocaine is worth only $100 to $150 in the back woods of Columbia the same is worth upwards of $100,000 in the southern US, more in the north. Properly cut, the same kilo can be worth well over $300,000.
    There is much talk of the so called “iron river” of guns flowing from the US to Mexico. Cause them to be more valuable here and the flow of the river will reverse, with all those weapons going into the hands of cartels and gangs, while the law abiding citizen is left defenseless.
    Any notion that ‘gun control’ is crime control is flawed in multiple ways and is more likely misinformation than misunderstanding when coming from politicians.
    For however long the ‘war on drugs’ continues, economics will favor the rise of gangs to facilitate the trafficking of drugs. Of course this will also fuel violence in terms of turf wars and the general mayhem that comes from illicit and unregulated trade. One need only to look at the rise of the criminal gang that followed prohibition of alcohol (which activity its self engendered misguided and oppressive gun laws) to see that drug prohibition could not and cannot otherwise than to cause a rise of organized criminal elements.
    The second amendment only follows the fourth to the grave in the name of the war on drugs. Nothing since prohibition of alcohol has lead to a greater reduction of individual liberty in this country, nor the creation of more scofflaws. This is a dangerous combination as the general sentiment that the government is unjust and therefore illegitimate coupled with the real problem of having to actually break the law in order to pursue a lucrative business leads to the inconsideration of other laws, such as those against murder, which are actually important to the populace at large.
    Failing to understand how prohibition of one product is inextricably tied to the prohibition of another is actually easy enough. However in the case of drugs and guns the relationship is sufficiently obvious that one would have to be either disingenuous or intentionally ignorant to ignore the connection. To say that civilian disarmament isn’t at least in part about denying drug gangs sufficient hardware to defy the police is to indicate ignorance of the historical model set by the prohibition of alcohol. Further, the dual depredations of government: An unwholesome concern with the substances one consumes and the associated concern about ones possession of weapons have eviscerated the 4th amendment, the primary protection of the people from the police in their day to day lives.
    As recently as the 1960’s the concept that one might be stopped on the street for little or no cause and searched was as alien as having to show ‘papers’ to cross a state line. Likewise, in the absence of clear and articulate probable cause the concept of having ones vehicle stopped and searched was unthinkable. These days we agonize over the contents of our vehicles and with firearms, how they are stored, since the possibility of stop and search isn’t remote but all too likely. If the letter of the 4th amendment isn’t dead, its spirit has surely left the body, all as a direct result of drug prohibition.
    These are complicated times, perhaps, but simple concepts. A person ought to be assured that whatever they might have in their pockets so long as it is theirs they are safe in its possession. Whether this be heroin or a pistol matters not, the very concept that the police might search a person not otherwise involved in a crime and then use what is found against them in court is anathema to the meaning of the 4th amendment, and certainly contrary to the concept of a free society.

    • They don’t think about all this stuff. They don’t even read legislation before they vote on it. They think about votes, not good government. It’s built into the system.

  21. As a Boulder resident this pleases me greatly, we have had only one murder in the last 2 years and it was a some tripper with a knife. Gun crime doesn’t exist in the county. I actually when into Boulder Gunsport (the only FFL in town) yesterday and bought a new case. I wonder how an open carry protest would go over?

    • What would one protest by open carrying? Open carry is legal in CO (offer void in the city and county of Denver).

  22. The stupid is strong in this one, I sense. Learn to say “do you want fries with that?” he must!

  23. I believe this is one of the hero Sheriffs that is against the new gun control laws that went into affect,and will not go along with a buy back anyway.He is right that any background checks would have to go through the terminal at the Sheriffs Office,and he really can’t tie up the system,because it would slow down criminal checks,not just gun buying background checks,which are actually handled by FFL dealers,through telephone,or by going on the NICS site,the terminal at the Sheriffs Office goes through a different system NCIC.Be prepared and ready.Keep your powder dry.

    • “He is right that any background checks would have to go through the terminal at the Sheriffs Office,”

      Not according to the law that went into effect on 01 July:

      18-12-112. Private firearms transfers – background check required – penalty – definitions.
      (1) (a) ON AND AFTER JULY 1, 2013, EXCEPT AS DESCRIBED IN SUBSECTION (6) OF THIS SECTION, BEFORE ANY PERSON WHO IS NOT A LICENSED GUN DEALER, AS DEFINED IN SECTION 12-26.1-106 (6), C.R.S., TRANSFERS OR ATTEMPTS TO TRANSFER POSSESSION OF A FIREARM TO A TRANSFEREE, HE OR SHE SHALL:
      (I) REQUIRE THAT A BACKGROUND CHECK, IN ACCORDANCE WITH SECTION 24-33.5-424, C.R.S., BE CONDUCTED OF THE PROSPECTIVE TRANSFEREE; AND
      (II) OBTAIN APPROVAL OF A TRANSFER FROM THE BUREAU AFTER A BACKGROUND CHECK HAS BEEN REQUESTED BY A LICENSED GUN DEALER, IN ACCORDANCE WITH SECTION 24-33.5-424, C.R.S.

      The check has to be performed by a licensed dealer, and approval must come from “the bureau” (Colorado Bureau of Investigation).

  24. My bad on mistakenly thinking that this guy was one of the good guys,I apologize to my fellow gun owners for my mistake!The rest of my post is correct though.Be prepared and ready.Keep your powder dry.

  25. “Really? No cell phone coverage in Boulder? ”
    That’s right! I get better coverage in the mountains west of Boulder, than I do at my home in the city.

  27. “Students raised nearly $8,000 to purchase the incentives.”

    So they were planning on buying back about eight AR-15’s or about a dozen Glock’s? Doesn’t seem like that would have much effect on anything, even assuming their “guns drive you insane and cause you to commit murder” bullshit was true.

  28. I reckon all guns should be stamped on the barrel with “Caution This Firearm May Become Violent Without Warning” That oughta do it.

    • WTH? This comment was supposed to be in reply to AJ, where AJ said “We have the same rules here in CA, but that hasn’t stopped any buy backs from happening”.

      That’s because the California Penal Code has an explicit exception to their “background check” requirement when the transfer is part of a “buy back program”.

      12078(a)(6) Subdivision (d) of Section 12072 and subdivision (b) of Section 12801 do not apply to sales, deliveries, or transfers of firearms to authorized representatives of cities, cities and counties, counties, or state or federal governments for those governmental agencies where the entity is acquiring the weapon as part of an authorized, voluntary program where the entity is buying or receiving weapons from private individuals.

      (12072(d) is the section that requires all transfers go through a dealer)

      (The above are the “old” PC numbers – CA renumbered them not too long ago.)

    • See my oddly-placed comment above.

      General gist: CA doesn’t have the same rules as the new CO law. CA has a carve-out for “gun buy backs”.

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