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Representative Donald Payne Jr. (courtesy nj.com)

The Safer Neighborhoods Gun Buyback Act, which was reintroduced this week by Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D-N.J. above), is the latest attempt by Democrats to address gun violence,” thehill.com reports. “The bill has 22 co-sponsors.” The lunacy of this proposal is staggering. For one thing, there’s no evidence whatsoever that any “gun buyback” program has ever done anything to reduce firearms-related crime. Of course, that complete lack of anecdotal or scientific data did nothing to deter Representative Payne and his ilk, who rely on “common sense” to make their case. Like this . . .

“Although no one piece of legislation will eliminate all gun violence, this bill will get guns off the streets and keep them out of the hands of people who wish to cause harm. If we can get one gun off the street, if we can save one life, then we have to take action.”

It’s the same “logic” gun control proponents use to promote their “No Fly No Buy” bill (executive order?): if banning guns from people on a secret list of suspected terrorists saves just one life . . .

The voluntary gun buyback proposal resembles legislation offered by earlier this year by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) that sought to pay gun owners to turn over assault weapons to the federal government.

And here’s the kicker:

As part of Payne’s $360 million gun buyback initiative, the Justice Department would pay gun owners a premium of 25 percent more than the market value of their firearms.

Gun owners could turn over their firearms to state and local governments as well as certain gun dealers.

In return, the gun owners would receive a debit card they could use to purchase anything other than more guns and ammunition.

The Justice Department would destroy the guns and recycle the parts.

I’m no good at math, but if Uncle Sam wants to buy back only 10% of America’s estimated 300 million guns paying a paltry $200 a gun (never mind 125% of “market value”), that would require $6 billion. “Both pieces of legislation are virtually certain to go nowhere in the Republican-controlled Congress.” You don’t say.

After you wipe the coffee off your screen, though, consider that even a $360 million federal buyback program would set a dangerous precedent. Then imagine what might happen with Hillary Clinton as President and a Democrat-controlled Congress. The mind boggles.

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85 COMMENTS

    • You can, just not directly.

      The card could pay for the food, gas and mortgage for a mo the, say, and the money you’d have spent on those things buys the gun instead.

      Or you just resell the card for a small premium, and away you go with cash.

      Either way, the sticking point here is who determines market value. My home-brew AR could have cost $350 or $3500 to put together, but either way it’ll look like an AR. So the people running the program would either have to be fairly knowledgeable about ARs, or have a preset price for a home-built.

      In which case, depending on where that price is, either a bunch of people now have a small home industry, or the govt is shocked at how few ARs get turned in.

      • Political grandstanders have never been able to economics very well.

        “Oh, I can’t buy more guns and ammo with *this* money? Well, I guess I’ll use it for the groceries then, and use the grocery money for my guns and ammo.”

        What a triumph.

    • It says no guns or ammo. Nothing about parts and accessories. You’ll just need to build your own. You’d only be out cash on the lower.

  1. Unzip fly, face wind, aim, release urine. Also, the only person I know who could do a “gun buyback” is the guy I originally bought my firearms from. What kind of cognitive dysfunction makes these pricks think they ever owned my arms in the first place. Sounds like a case of say it enough and people will believe it. Believe that the state is the true owner of our arms.

    • Wickard v Filburn; the government owns everything that can possibly be used in any commerce, since it would affect interstate commerce. All property, all human behavior. One more gift from that greatest of great men, FDR, on the heels of the outright banning of gold bullion for a brief time; he required that all bold be sold to the government –a ‘buyback’– at a stated market value, then promptly raised the dollar/gold exchange by like 25%, stealing one quarter of value from everyone stupid enough to participate.

  2. Money is fungible. Pay me $625 for my $500 handgun and I’ll go out and buy another $500 handgun and $125 worth of ammo and accessories.

      • “market” =/= “retail”, especially when it’s the government “buyer” who determines what ‘market” is.

        • If you believe that the government is determined to, and capable of, confiscating by force all of a particular gun, and paying $100 per copy, then the market value of those guns is limited to $100. Doesn’t matter if it was $5000 yesterday, or $25, it’s $100 now.

        • That is exactly what I was explaining to my range group this weekend when we were talking about this. While I would love to get $1000 for the $800 gun that I paid $500 for, I highly doubt the person setting the value will be using a fair system.

          More like a car trade in. They’ll off you the lowest price for the used item (‘Poor’, ‘Fair’, ‘Good’, ‘Very Good’, ‘Excellent’). You’ll get the worst possible pricing model for ‘fair market value’.

  3. Seems like a better plan than to force foreign banks to disclose Americans’ investments huh? As if the killers are gonna turn their guns in.
    Destroy the guns and recycle the parts? Wonder how that is done.
    And, enough of this “if it saves one life” BS. They just won’t mention how many lives are gonna be lost because of their gun control.

    • If you don’t say “recycle” something, the airheads will automatically disregard your proposal without reading farther.

    • If your typical gun owner is anything like me, it’ll take a LOT more than that. 100 million gun owners times an average of, what, $10,000 in currently owned weapons and accessories? So $1 trillion.

      • Reduce the number of firearms on the street? What a laugh. This money won’t “buy back” what was sold on Black Friday alone.

    • It would cost your life, and that of millions of others who would eventually succumb to the tyranny that our former great nation would become.

  4. Having experienced two buy backs here in Australia and admittedly making money on a couple of short barrelled pistols. I bought new ones with the cheque

    But if possible “no way” is the best response

  5. So you can’t (supposedly) sell your gun and buy another one. If the people getting the “buyback” money can legally purchase guns, then how does that “keep guns out the wrong hands”?

  6. When they can prevent EBT cards from being used to buy beer, cigarettes, and lap dances they can tell me what I can do with their debit card.

  7. How many times can you do it?? Enough 80% lowers, a jig or two to process, and the cheapest Chinese furniture I could find + 25% premium- I could have enough for that Dillion mini gun I have always wanted.

    • I recently found a fully transferable MK19, with tripod. Certainly, at $285k, we should try to make as much as possible, to give that poor unwanted machine a good home.

  8. “In return, the gun owners would receive a debit card they could use to purchase anything other than more guns and ammunition.”

    Well can’t see any flaws in that plan oh wait…

    Turn in gun get debit card go to local pawn shop and buy gold/silver drive to another local pawn shop sell gold/silver take cash to local gun shop buy newer gun. Wash rinse repeat.

    • They’re also assuming the guns will be purchased legally. But if the people who sell their guns to this “buyback” can legally own guns in the first place, how does that help get guns out of the wrong hands?

    • “Turn in gun get debit card go to local pawn shop and buy gold/silver drive to another local pawn shop sell gold/silver take cash to local gun shop buy newer gun.”

      You obviously know next to nothing about the pawn trade.

      Allow me to educate you…

      All you will be doing is making pawnbrokers *very* wealthy. (And if you ask us, we deserve to…)

      That $100 in gold-silver you just bought from pawnshop #1?

      It cost him probably $50. Now you’re gonna take that $50 in gold and sell it to pawnshop #2.

      Pawnshop #2 will pay you $25 for that $50 worth you bought from the first shop.

      Congratulations! You just turned $100 into $25!

      The pawnbrokers will be high-fiving each other and laughing at you behind your back.

      (Likely even more than we usually do to dumb-asses like yourself…)

      • Yup, you would do better to buy from a bullion dealer and sell to another bullion dealer. You would lose some money in the process still (you would be buying at slightly above market and selling at slightly below market) but not as much as through pawnbrokers. the better deal is just to use the gov’t money to buy your butter, and use your newly-saved butter money to buy guns.

        • “Yup, you would do better to buy from a bullion dealer and sell to another bullion dealer.”

          Like Krugerrands. You can usually sell them for spot (or close to) at a coin dealer. The buyer usually eats the premium. (Usually a few pct., depends on where you buy)

          One pawnshop I was at years back were rather dickish on ‘Rands, that guy would only pay melt (50 pct.) on Oz. coins. That was usually rather entertaining to watch when the seller knew what spot was on that day…

    • Too complicated. You sell a gun for say $100. You go buy your usual groceries for the week with the “NO GUNS” debit card. You use the cash you would have used for groceries on a new gun.

      This is the same idiocy that lets the government pretend that making the insurance company call abortion and birth control “free” means your premium doesn’t pay for it.

      Money is fungible.

      So is oil BTW so the “we won’t buy Saudi oil” thing is just as silly.

      • Or, you go to your LGS and buy guns and ammo with the card, what they don’t know won’t hurt you. “Joe, mark that “hardware”, OK?”

    • I’m going to try ti make this really easy…

      1. Buy food and gas with debt card.

      2. Use food and gas money to buy guns.

  9. 360 million? So $1/gun to buy every gun in the country? What could go wrong? Or is this part of the program that spent 500 million to train 4 Syrians to fight?

  10. Sounds like a 300M$ stimulus plan for the AR and AK sellers.
    I guess I’m OK with that.
    Sell my less than favorite guns and buy something better.

  11. I kind of like the idea of the federal gov’t paying me for guns I want to sell. Not only do I get paid the MSRP, but add in an extra 25 percent? Nothing wrong with that.

    Were this to become a real thing though, it would destroy the used gun market.

  12. Note they said market value, not actual value. And that 25% over market value sounds great until you realize that the federal government will determine what the “market value” of your “assault rifle” is. if they force something similar to the New York SAFE Act through on a national level then all they have to do is declare that the market value of your assault rifle and magazines is $1 or less and you will, by law, have no choice but to turn them in for that 1.25. and if you don’t then they will have “legal” justification to drop FBI/ATF SWAT teams on you. not that legal Justification has stopped them in the past but…

  13. More like, $360 BILLION. Who’s going to administer the fund? Take in the guns and store them nationwide? Disperse the funds with 100% assurance there’s not fraud? Transport the guns where, to be demilled how, with not one ever surfacing in the hands of the workers or used as a trophy for political purposes.

    Where’s the money coming from – a mandatory increase in taxes? That’s what the Aussies got for their effort, higher taxes. Or will we double our National Debt for that year with even more IOU’s in the hands of the Chinese?

    Somebody hasn’t thought things thru very well – just exactly WHO is going to turn in the guns? Same as buybacks in the cities, when they have junk to turn in. The rest of us WILL NOT COMPLY – same as those in NY aren’t complying with the SAFE Act.

    Pie in the sky thinking, the more they pout and postulate, the more conversation and it becomes blatantly obvious It’s Not Going To Happen.

    • “Where’s the money coming from – a mandatory increase in taxes?”

      What business of that is yours? The serfs no longer have guns, shut up or die. Any other questions, puke?

  14. What a deal! Count me in! Cant wait for a couple new ARs after that price premium!

    It is like cash for clunkers for guns, only it pays big money and allows people to upgrade to more scary versions. Money is fungible afterall. It seems liberals have trouble with fungibility.

  15. I hope they can this bill and bring Delauro’s bill back to life.

    If you’ll recall, the Delauro bill gave you $2,000 tax credit spread across two years (a credit, not a deduction) and the great thing was–

    just the stripped lower for an AR qualified! Yeah, you could only turn in one but I’ve got a lower I paid $35.00 for that I’ll happily swap for a $2,000 credit.

  16. “In return, the gun owners would receive a debit card they could use to purchase anything other than more guns and ammunition.”

    So you use the card to buy your groceries, and use your original grocery budget to replace your gun and ammunition.

    Clearly “fungible” is too fancy a word for a hick NJ legislator to comprehend.

  17. See, here’s exactly what’s wrong with the common liberal mindset. They just don’t understand either economics or human nature. But in their defense, how could they, when all the blood that should be going to their brain instead bleeds out of their hearts?

  18. I fear the day that the Dems take the House and Senate back over. Then there is a good chance stupidity like this will be passed. It’s not assured, as there a small handful of dems that will know laws like this are hot garbage. There are a lot of dems that would blindly support any gun control that was pushed in front of their face no matter the consequences.

  19. $360 million? Hell, Bloomberg can buy Colorado, Washington, Maryland, New York, the entire Congress and the President for less than that, and have enough money left over to buy a couple of Supreme Court Justices to boot.

  20. Um, even if they managed to pass such an unconstitutional law, I am not giving up my guns. I will be damned if I let this country slide into tyranny.

  21. What?
    You expect them to think we deserve to get paid more than $1 each?
    It’s not like we have a choice, they’re going to order us to turn them in. I mean, we couldn’t just shoot the bastards with them, right?

  22. Can they tell the difference between a Mossberg “tactical ” 22 and a high end AR? I’m betting not he he…

  23. You know, I could slap together a couple of mostly complete ARs really cheap if I skipped out on a few things and only bought the lowest quality stuff. Polymer lower, left over furniture from previous builds/upgrades, no rear sight, the cheapest LPK I can find, and some old worn out barrels. If it doesn’t have to be functional I bet I could assemble two scary looking hunks of junk for maybe two hundred each and possibly less.

    If they were offering $500 or more I could turn a quick profit. Sort of like the guys who turned in the fishing nets that were unsafe for dolphins and put chain link fencing between the layers to increase the total weight.

  24. I like this. Shoot my gun until it’s time to clean it. Sell it to the gov’ment. Use that money for bills. Buy another gun.

    I’d never have to clean a gun again! Victory for lazy people everywhere!

  25. Wait, so you want to use my money to pay me for the firearms that I paid for, with my money. Sweet! How much would it cost to set up an operation like that??? If we play this right, we can hire more bureaucrats,,, maybe create a new Agency!!! Or,,,
    I can keep what I paid for with my money, and you can f**k off.

  26. Remember folks, they aren’t comin for your guns, they are going to pay you a dollar and some change to just up and give it to them. Democrats: re-writing the definition of stupid every other week in America.

  27. Can’t believe I’m the first one posting this…. Sell them a high point, highly modified, safe queen… No? Nothing? It shoots 40 caliper!

  28. Minor correction. 300 million guns x $200 each is actually $60 billion.

    I know we’ve become pretty numb to all of the millions/billions/trillions numbers involved with government spending and debt, but still…

  29. Sounds like a pretty good plan for someone. Buy 60 million dollars worth of guns @ $1000.00 per, pocket the rest. The news gets a huge pile of guns to take pictures of, Joe and Sally in NY, NY get to feel like somthing proactive is getting done, and some Dems get to line their pockets. Its genius!

  30. “Although no one piece of legislation will eliminate all gun violence, this bill will get guns off the streets . . .”
    OK, so, we can all agree that no one proposed measure will be the “one piece of legislation [that] will eliminate all gun violence”. Each will have it’s marginal effect. And, in the spirit of good will, I’ll concede that each one will get at least 1 gun off the streets; just 1.
    So, where to we begin? Shall we begin with those proposals that seem to offer the promise of getting the fewest guns off the streets? Those that – at most – will get just 1 gun? Then, move on to those that might get 2 guns; then 3; . . .?
    Or, might it be more effective to consider those proposals that might get the largest number of guns off-the-streets? How about prosecuting felon-in-posession? How about lengthening the sentences served for criminals convicted of violent crimes?
    Eventually, we can work our way down to straw-buyers who can be proven to have known, or should have known, that their principles were prohibited persons?
    No appetite for that? No? So, then, why should the voters take seriously legislating against the least of the threats to public safety?

  31. The “if we can save one life” canard.

    Turns out that guns in the hands of citizens save more than one life regularly. The data is clear on that point.

    How about we allow people to arm themselves without governmental intervention so they can save more lives?

  32. The thing is… where’s the money come from? Oh, yeah… taxpayers. So, you’re gonna give money to the government for the government to give money back to take your guns away? Hell no!!

  33. This is completely hilarious! Better idea. Use the $360 million to administer an IQ test to very member of Congress with the stipulation that any sitting Member who doesn’t score higher than a Chimpanzee is automatically removed from Office. That should clean House pretty thoroughly and would be a valid use of Taxpayer Money.

  34. Ya know, to hearken back to another post on this blog–it would certainly save a lot more than “just one life” if all cars were “governed” so as not to exceed, say, 20 mph. Wouldn’t that be “worth it”? If you plan things out right, who _needs_ to go 30mph, right?

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