I missed the notifications of this event at the People’s Missionary Baptist Church in Toledo Saturday. It seems that those notifications are coming closer and closer to the event date, almost as if those conducting the turn-ins don’t want anyone to do any pre-planning. Toledo has a checkered history of police bullying private buyers and sellers. Buckeyefirearms.org did a great job of exposing this last year, with four videos: Video 1, Video 2, Video 3, and Video 4. Not that it mattered, as there were plenty of private buyers on hand this year . . .
This year, the police seem to have learned more about the law. Maybe that’s due to the bad publicity in earlier years. Here’s what the Toledo Blade reported:
In addition to attracting people willing to trade in their guns for cash, the buyback drew private gun buyers and collectors who were willing to pay people cash.
Larry Lorms of Columbus was willing to offer more than $50, possibly $300 to $400, depending on the model, age, and condition.
They even reported that the police had no problems with the private buyers:
Sergeant Madison said she was aware of the buyers outside the church.
“That is their right to be there. We are not concerned about them,” she said. “Our mission is to provide a service to our community. We are not trying to pressure people to get rid of guns they want to keep.”
I haven’t seen a report of how many private sales were conducted. Last year the turn-in event brought in at least two nice S&W revolvers and the police took in 178 firearms and 90 pounds of ammunition.
No totals for this year’s turn-in have been reported by the police yet.
©2014 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
Gun Watch
With my luck, I’d show up there with several thousand in cash and some jerk-off would have a $4000 shotgun or rifle and want to turn it in for $100, and when I offered him a cool thousand for it, he would say NO, I’m gonna turn it in, I want to get it off the street!
I tried to make some purchases at a Jacksonville buyback, but there were tons of sellers saying that exact thing. Either that, or they had the rustiest junk you’d ever seen. No luck at all. All the good stuff was gotten by the police.
It’s the same as seized property and asset forfeiture. They sell the junk at police sales, but the good stuff is taken up by the cops and never gets offered to the public.
I’d be there to buy the ammo. Then resell it at a later date for a profit. It’s the American way. 🙂
Your link to video #4 actually links to #2 again.
Just change the “2-4” in the URL to “4-4” to see the last video
Thanks. It should be fixed now.
Yes, officers, if you read the law, you’ll find that free trade is still legal. (Waiting for someone to pipe up with “for now.”)
For Now. The anti freedom folks are just waiting for the right incident to happen. Then the president can declare a State of National Emergency with no selling of firearms or ammo.
Good for them. No need to waste taxpayer money when the private market can do it better 😛
I’ve gotta get in on the next (local) one of these…
90 pounds of ammo.
Sooo, 2 ammo cans? Good grief
Either a sh!t-load of .22 or a couple .50s.
Good for the private buyers saving quality firearms from some tax payer funded for show gun crush event that some jacka$$ for sale politician would use for a BS campaign event. But as far as the ammo? what they got was likely worthless old crap in plastic Walmart bags that you wouldn’t want to shoot in anything worth owning!
At one of the Phoenix turn in events this spring, I purchased two cases of 12 gauge dove loads at $2 a box. It appeared that they might have been in a flood (the outside cardboard box was waters stained), but they shot well.
Well next time they have one in Portland I’ll try to zip down there to save a few guns. ^,,^
HAHAHA I love that little backhanded remark “Our mission is to provide a service to our community. We are not trying to pressure people to get rid of guns they want to keep.”
So now paying someone a fair value for their used item is “pressuring them” to sell something they actually want to keep. What a joke these people.
Agreed. It’s their “mission”, yet they’re doing it on city time, probably on overtime, at that. Who wouldn’t want the occasional diversion from the monotony that is routine police work, while earning time and a half, and get to reinforce their innate sense of superiority over the public?
I think it’s awesome. I like it that some good guns are saved from melt down, or even just from greedy policemen’s hands, through the ballsy initiative of people like the young men pictured. I also like that these people present to the public the face of the American firearms owner, in defiance of the false narrative peddled by the antis.
Police and gullible “buy back” participants alike refer to getting these guns off “the streets.” What streets?! Five minutes ago, these particular guns were in your closets, attics, and under your beds, where they’d rested unmolested and nonviolently for perhaps years.
Now, some may be bought by enterprising firearms enthusiasts who will keep them in safes or on their persons or otherwise at the ready, like tens of millions of other peaceful firearms owners, and use them from recreational or other legitimate purposes.
It puts the lie to the phony seedy depiction of guns as being exclusively the filthy implements of a violent criminal subculture.
BEWARE, Freedom Lovers. This is the same town that convicted me of carrying a concealed firearm in a public park, WHICH I WAS LICENSED BY THE STATE TO DO. So much for “justice” in Toledo. my hometown. That’s one reason why I now reside in the Great State of Texas. And I still refuse to pay the fine.