Image by Boch. Base image via City of Decatur, IL Facebook page.
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“The time is always right to do what’s right,” the great civil rights leader (and gun owner) Martin Luther King once said. He was right in so many ways. Earlier this week, some do-gooders in Decatur, Illinois announced an upcoming gun “buyback” scheduled for Friday afternoon, April 2nd from 2:00p to 6:00p.

Sponsors have dubbed the event the “Decatur Community Day of Peace.”

They aren’t pinching pennies, either. They will be paying big bucks for firearms at this peaceful family event. How much? $225 for revolvers and semi-auto pistols. While that sum might not flip your skirt (or your kilt) for modern handguns, consider hundred-year-old clunker pistols that might not even shoot. After all, I doubt they’ll test-fire the guns surrendered.

Even more remarkably, they are were paying even better prices for magazines. $35 for AR magazines – more than double the street price of brand new PMags.  They’re also offering $25 for other 10+ round semi-auto magazines.

It seems that the sponsors got word of their idiocy and repealed the magazine “buyback.”

This from the City of Decatur Facebook page just minutes ago.

***** UPDATED INFORMATION *****
Due to an overwhelming number of calls, we are providing additional information to the public to address many of the common questions we have received as well to provide additional information.
This program was set up to work with the community to get illegal guns off the street and keep them out of the hands of criminals and children.

Illegal guns? Out of the hands of criminals? Have these clueless knuckleheads ever been to a gun “buyback” event? I’ve been to dozens and the criminal types are the LAST people who will show up, with a dozen or more cops swarming the area.

Besides, they’re calling this a “family event” (see promo poster below)? So you can cancel those plans you had to clean up while arbitraging a couple of cases of new AR mags.

MAGAZINES will NO LONGER be accepted. Too many people have already planned to take advantage of this option.

Only operable firearms will be accepted. The Chief of Police and/or other event organizers present at the collection site reserve the right to make the final decision on whether or not to accept any firearm, as well the number of firearms accepted per person.

They must have gotten an earful from the people who read the Guns Save Life post about the event that went up yesterday within minutes of the original announcement. Hint: don’t take more than two or three guns per person to the event.

For additional information, you can also all DPD at 217-424-2743 or 217-424-2723.
Decatur Community Day of Peace
April 2, 2021
2pm-6pm
Community Church of God
333 S Martin Luther King Jr. Dr.

Folks, this remains a perfect opportunity to help these do-gooders get unwanted jam-o-matic broken-down junk out of your trunk and put some presidents in your pocketbook.

It’s the right thing to do! How do we know? Well, the sponsors quote gun owner Dr. Martin Luther King himself. We have to wonder if the sponsors of the Decatur event know of the civil rights giant’s affinity for gun ownership for the little people.

Dr. King knew that the only thing that stops bad bigots with evil in their hearts is a good guy with a gun. On the other hand, gun “buybacks” have never thwarted a violent criminal attack or hate crime. Not even once.

Civil rights legend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Image via syr.edu

Dr. King was a wise and prudent man. He faced a lot of racists and bigots in his home state of Alabama. In 1956 he applied for a carry permit after his house was bombed. The local police chief arbitrarily denied the application, claiming Dr. King didn’t have a need.

Welcome to racist gun control “may-issue” laws that gave bigoted local police and sheriffs the right to discriminate under Jim Crow.

From the Huffington Post(!):

One issue on everyone’s mind this Martin Luther King Jr. day was gun control. King’s calls for resolving our differences through peaceful nonviolence are especially poignant after [scumbag’s name redacted] gunned down six people and wounded several others in Tucson. Amid the clamor for new gun laws, its appropriate to remember King’s complicated history with guns.

Most people think King would be the last person to own a gun. Yet in the mid-1950s, as the civil rights movement heated up, King kept firearms for self-protection. In fact, he even applied for a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

A recipient of constant death threats, King had armed supporters take turns guarding his home and family. He had good reason to fear that the Klan in Alabama was targeting him for assassination…

William Worthy, a journalist who covered the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, reported that once, during a visit to King’s parsonage, he went to sit down on an armchair in the living room and, to his surprise, almost sat on a loaded gun. Glenn Smiley, an adviser to King, described King’s home as “an arsenal.”

As I found researching my new book, Gunfight, in 1956, after King’s house was bombed, King applied for a concealed carry permit in Alabama. The local police had discretion to determine who was a suitable person to carry firearms. King, a clergyman whose life was threatened daily, surely met the requirements of the law, but he was rejected nevertheless. At the time, the police used any wiggle room in the law to discriminate against African Americans.

Guns Save Life/ TTAG image by John Boch.

Sadly, Guns Save Life, the Illinois group famous for exchanging rusty, broken down bangsticks for cash for kids’ shooting programs has run out of broken down guns. I serve as the Executive Director for GSL and we took our last batch of guns to Chicago a couple of weeks ago and came back with a cool grand in cash (not pictured above…  that was 2019’s haul) for teaching young people how to shoot safely and effectively.

Image by Boch for GSL/TTAG.  From the 2012 trip to Murder City USA.

Here’s the promo literature for the upcoming Decatur, event, courtesy of the City of Decatur’s Facebook page.

Image via City of Decatur, IL Facebook page.

For prices offered like those, this event is way too good and the cause way too important to keep news to ourselves. After all, what’s really important is that we all come together to help the Decatur Community Day of Peace be the successful family event the organizers are hoping for.

Bring your broken down, antiquated handguns on Friday, April 2nd from 2:00p to 6:00p at 333 S. Martin Luther King Drive, Decatur, Illionois.  Better get there early because with an offer like this, the fools and their money will soon be parted.

 

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57 COMMENTS

    • What I would like to know is how many laws are being broken with every gun turned in. Is it is considrred a private sale it would seem at least a few are being broken. The no questions asked would seem to imply no food card checking, and therefore would be a is a direct violation at state law

      But I am no legal expert.

  1. Dang! I’m quite awaze from Decatur. $225 for a raggedly revolver or Lorcin?!? Cool. I need a helluva lot more than $325 for my AR 😏

  2. OK you despicable Jim Crow Gun Control Zealots what you scumbags would really like to do is adorn yourselves in sheets and pointed caps and gang up on people to confiscate their guns. This buyback crap is nothing more than another attempt at putting a smiley face on Jim Crow Gun Control.

  3. It doesn’t surprise me idiots who promote “buyback” schemes have no concept of the value of these items.

    Csnt wait for the Oz style mandated “buybacks” where multi-thousand $$$ pieces and collections go for pennies on the dollar…. or else. Mafia racket.

    • If you Are dumb enough to surrender $1000 gun for a couple hundred bucks, then you’re a fool and your money has gone bye-bye

      • If people are willing to sell turn in their AR-15 or AK-47 for $350, I would be there with several thousand dollars and offer $375 for same. Heck I would even be willing to pay $400 for them if that was the added incentive that the “sellers” needed to make a deal with me rather than the church.

        Pro tip: if you can buy AR-15s and/or AK-47s for $400 right now, you can probably turn around and sell them pretty much immediately for at least twice that.

        • The $400 is the carrot. The stick is potentially 4+ years in federal penitentiary if you are caught with the now prohibited firearm.

    • Shire
      The only “good” thing about the gun grab in Australia was the 100% plus overpayment for most guns. I got $950 for a 10/.22 with folding stock that had cost me about $300. Best estimate is that half of the semi autos were grabbed.

      The failing attempt in New Zealand is trying to be cheap and strangely not popular.

  4. Defund the police and, use the savings to buy people’s junk guns, and watch the useless cities slide into complete chaos. Win-Win-Win!

  5. for pennies on the dollar…. or else

    I’ll take option two… OBTW, can I claim the right to first inspection and purchase of ALL shotguns at $75 bucks a pop…

  6. The money mill for AR mags may have shut down, but there’s still a big profit opportunity with Jennings, Lorcins and HiPoints. Just remember to save one good piece for yourself so you can make it out of Decatur with your cash.

  7. King’s history with guns isn’t the least bit “complicated”.

    What they meant was that it’s complicated to reconcile their worship of King with their worship of tyranny.

    A local GSL member with an FFL should set something up on Gunbroker to buy non-locals’ clunkers (with the markup going to defray his expenses and support the organization).

    • “What they meant was that it’s complicated to reconcile their worship of King with their worship of tyranny.”

      Or to reconcile Dr. King’s vision of a society in which people are judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin with modern leftist identify politics.

    • Similar to my comment above: if people are willing to sell turn in their shotgun for $75, I would be there with several thousand dollars and buy as many as possible from the “sellers”.

  8. So putting a positive spin on the lefty plan maybe since they are only offering peanuts they will only attract the criminal element for their junk and stolen guns cashing in on the local community property tax grab and leave us honest law abiding citizens to make the wise decision of never selling back our 2A rights and things we cherish.

  9. A ‘Day’ of peace, huh? How appropriate! “Peace is that short period of time when everyone pauses to reload”.

  10. It is an unsurprising level of ignorance on the buy-back proponents. They think the inanimate objects are the cause of bad human behaviors. From there they go on not bothering to check what anything sells for new or used. That info is easy to find out, it’s on countless sites around the internet!

    Mags for $25? I must have several dozen unused AR 30 round mags of various makes including Pmags, Thermold, Lancer, C-Products and others that all reached my door for under $10 to maybe $15 tops. They must have been overwhelmed with AR owners wanting to double and triple their money!

    Sadly, I no longer have cheap old beaters to take to a gun buy back event. Years back I collected old top-break revolvers, Some could still shoot, but others were strictly wall hangers, to worn and unsafe even for the low pressure loadings still made for those calibers. Even so, when I sold the last of the collection on GunBroker, have to say they fetched a good price for what they were.

    Wasn’t $225 each though. Now that would have been a nice haul 🙂

      • Trump was and continues to be a traitor to the Republic and a clear and present danger to the security of the United States. Had the Dems put forth a cracked addled chimpanzee, I’d of voted for the chimp.

        People who supported Trump in 2015-16 for the GOP nomination are directly responsible for creating the disaster of the last four years and all that comes after.

        • STOP with the Trump bashing already! Pedo Joe has embarrassed our country countless times since he stole the Presidency. Since you’re supporting pedophiles and child sex trafficking, I am going to IGNORE anything you say from this point forward.

  11. Well, poo. I’m hanging on to a nameless revolver I inherited from my father-in-law 10 years ago, I think he owned it well over 50 years, I have never seen a mechanism more primitive. I doubt it cost a dollar new, and I wouldn’t pay a dollar for it now, nor would I EVER fire it. But hell, it’s a .38 and I would love to stick those retards for $225 for the POS, but I can’t justify driving to IL to do it, why can’t we have more idiots closer to me?

  12. “Better get there early because with an offer like this, the fools and their money will soon be parted.”

    Worse than that. The proverbial fool at least wastes his own money. The fool here might be the voter, of course, but it sucks for those who didn’t vote for the idiots in charge. That aside, the taxpayer money isn’t just wasted, it’s used for propaganda purposes, which is what these gun buy-ups are really about. So again, worse than that.

  13. It’s a long drive but I have a carload of hi- points, lorcins and jennings… at $225 a pop…im there dude!!

  14. “Better get there early because with an offer like this, the fools and their money will soon be parted.”

    Seems to me the fools were already snookered in a way. Their marketing genius should have planned it for a day earlier. Hmm, might have made a good Monty Python skit…

  15. So…they buy low and then sell high?
    Will they destroy the guns in front of the seller to prove that they are not going to re-sell them? Otherwise…what’s the point?
    Are these people licensed to do this? After all…they are doing transfers and sales…right?
    Has anyone background checked these people?
    Hmmm…things to think about…right?

  16. Omg. I have seen stupid shit before, but my god. I wish I had a bunch of shitty, sat specials, or even the oddball hi point. I would make a video of myself cashing in all these shitty guns, and then proceeding to buy one or maybe two decent guns. Then write a thank you note, saying “thanks for helping me get rid of all my unwanted shit guns, so I could go buy better, more reliable ones.” Follow that with a Seig Heil, because I’m going to assume that’s what they’re going for. (The nazis were well known gun control fanatics too) Really sad to see fascism is alive and well, I thought we already took care of that.

  17. They are offering $225 for semi-automatic handguns according to the flyer: there has to be some semi-auto handgun for sale brand new that is substantially less than that. If I could purchase 20 brand new Hi-Points for $175 each, I would do it and then sell turn them in for $225 each at this event.

    Then again, I would feel awful handing over brand new fully functional firearms — only to be destroyed — just to make a couple hundred dollars. Broken rusty inoperable firearms? Sure thing! Fully functional brand new firearms? Nope, can’t do it.

  18. I’ve got a Taurus 709 I would trade in. It only runs reliably on Fiocchi ammo, nothing else. I’m too honest to trade it in and let it be somebody else’s problem.

  19. Screw you and your gun buy back,if some idiot will turn in a AR for 350 he’s a retard.Your never going to any of my guns and never going to ban AR’s.Get off my lawn,what part of shall not be infringed upon,don’t you understand.Try to take my guns see what happens,someone will be dead,and its not me.Carry all the time,Carry EVERYWHERE…F*#$k off George

  20. LEAST OFFERED $ , IF WHERE NOT TO FAR TO DRIVE I HAVE 1 MAYBE TWO I WOULD DO OK ON OFFER . WHEW ON THA COMMENTS THEY WORTH A $1 HA .

    • Yeah me too, I’ve got 3 fixer uppers that ain’t worth fixing.
      I doubt this state will ever have a buy back.

  21. There is an empty lot just north of this church. I suggest some folks set up there with a sign and see if ya can getcha some great deals. I would be there myself (I don’t live in Decatur but I work there) but I will be vacationing at that time nowhere near the corrupt shithole that is
    Illinois. What pisses me off the most about this event? The myriad of useless Illinois laws that will be broken by the do gooders and the PD.

  22. Klamath Falls Herald and News: Thursday, May 7th, 2020/Letters To The Editor
    LETTER TO THE EDITOR
    Gun control

    “Injustice everywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

    -Martin Luther King

    As a local outspoken Second Amendment activist and advocate of the .38 caliber revolver (.38 Special and .357 Magnum) for the honest law abiding citizen I was naturally provoked to resistance against “Supreme Court ducks a Second Amendment issue-for now”: Herald and News: Thursday, April 30, 2020.

    This anti-gun commentary pontificated elitist uppity “LBJ/KGB” style socialist class warfare! Of course, don’t expect moral and intellectually honesty from an anti-gun journalist via the L.A. Times. Jeffrey Snyder’s “A Nation Of Cowards: The Public Interest Quarterly Fall 1993 states under The Unarmed Life, “The liberal elite (actually treasonous socialists!) know that they are philosopher-kings. They know that the people simply cannot be trusted; that they are incapable of just and fair self-government; that left to their own devices, their society will be racist, sexist, homophobic, and inequitable – and the liberal elite know how to fix things. They are going to help us live the good and just life, even if they have to lie to us and force us to do it. And they detest those who stand in their way.

    The private ownership of firearms is a rebuke to this Utopian zeal. To own firearms is to affirm that freedom and liberty are not gifts from the state. It is to reserve final judgment about whether the state is encroaching on freedom and liberty, to stand ready to defend that freedom with more than mere words, and to stand outside the state’s totalitarian reach”.

    “Gun Control Is Not About Public Safety” by Nicohlas T. Loux, PhD is linked for further scrutiny on this civil rights/human rights issue via http://www.jpfo.org/pdf03/sentine-19-web.pdf.” Finally my own January 2009 Herald and News letter: “Gun rights protect all races, not just a few” remains archived in this newspaper.

    James A. Farmer, Merrill
    Merrill, Oregon in Klamath County
    Long Live The State of Jefferson!

    These anti-gun “turn in guns for cash scams” are predicated upon political deceit, class warfare, and for promoting disarmed/unarmed victimhood! They have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with reducing violent crime, protection of the innocent (including women and children), and making our communities safer! No the don’t. Any merchants who sponsor something as vile, odious, and deceitful like this rightly deserve to be boycotted, picketed, and ran out of business! Also……I label this racket as the “surrender, submit, and bend over bare assed to the brute with the bullwhip!” Those who turn their swords into plowshares, will share with those who don’t.

  23. How are they defining “assault style” rifles that get $325 cash?
    Usually it’s if it has a “pistol grip”, because anti-gun people find that terrifying because they think it’s penis-shaped.
    So a 10/22 with a pistol grip is an “assault style” rifle, right?
    Tae a rusty 55-year-old 10/22 that you bought for $50, put a pistol grip on it, and collect $325.

    What about taking a regular, non-scary rifle and gluing a pistol grip to it — would that make it an “assault style” rifle that gets $325?
    If it’s just the “style” that gets you the $325, then gluing a pistol grip onto a single-shot break-action rifle or bolt-action rifle would also make it “assault style” rifle.

  24. I was one of the locals who pointed out onFacebook the stupidity of $35 magazine buybacks for $10 mags. Friends were all set to make some money. I should have kept my mouth shut and let the fools overpay for magazines.

  25. A gun shop just south of Decatur said they had a steady flow of customers who turned in junk and went down to order new guns and accessories!

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