"Patrol Officer Fernando Luis with some rifles and shotguns police collected at a gun-buy session. More than 100 weapons, plus ammunition, were purchased for nearly $30,000." (caption and photo courtesy theridgefieldpress.com)

My father once told me: don’t kick a man when he’s down. Unless he’s a bad man. Then kick him until he stops moving. So I will continue kicking gun buybacks (editorially speaking) until pols pandering to political correctness abandon their anti-gun agitprop for firearms freedom. Which could be quite some time. But there are signs that the media is slowly cottoning-on to the fact that gun buybacks are a complete waste of money—at a time when local, state and the federal government are running out of other people’s money. theridgefieldpress.com‘s lead for Police spend $29,500 to collect 103 guns: “You can put a price on safety.” See what they did there? The snarkiness is subtle but encouraging. Unfortunately, scribe Steve Coulter then gives the local po-po chest-puffing props . . .

“It was more than we expected,” said Police Chief John Roche. “The weapons came from people in town that didn’t know what to do with them or that didn’t want to bother with registering them under the new state gun laws.

“Everyone was very cooperative and very interested in eliminating their possession of these weapons.”

As opposed to uncooperative (“I will give you this gun when I’m bloody well ready you bastard”) and blasé. Anyway, why would they be what with what the CT police were paying?

Chief Roche said rifles and shotguns were the most popular weapons that were purchased. They included a Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun and the .308 Winchester hunting rifle.

However, the department was most impressed with the four banned assault rifles, which they bought at $750 each.

Police were offering $750 for pre-ban assault rifles and $500 for post-ban assault rifles.

The gun program also paid $300 for working rifles and shotguns and $200 for working handguns.

There was a “no questions asked” policy to promote people to turn in their weapons without fear of prosecution.

The next bit is brought to you by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Firearms. Steel yourself . . .

A single gun owner turned in three of the four automatic weapons, as well as several handguns.

“He had quite the collection,” said Detective Steve Papstein.

Yes, they’re all headed for destruction. (Unless some go walkies . . .) And if that doesn’t get Constitution State gun owners blood boiling, how about this: the cops are keeping now-illegal-for-sale high-capacity magazines for themselves.

Police purchased 150 high-capacity magazine clips — 46 of which will be retained for department use — for $20 apiece. In addition, they half-filled a five-gallon bucket with random ammunition, including bullets and shotgun shells.

Oh, did I say the writer was somewhat snarkily pro-gun? I was wrong about that . . .

Despite the program’s success, Captain Ryan said 111 pistol permits have been processed this year and there are 120 permits pending, which means there are still plenty of guns in town.

OMG! Guns! In town! Owned legally! OMG!

Anyway, in this case, the money for the guns came from private donations. And what of police time, overtime and the big fat addition to their bank of pensionable hours? Of that no mention was made. I wonder why . . .

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78 COMMENTS

        • Hey, SS, I’ll pay the freight from Australia if they’ll let me give that Galil a good home. And change the laws in California so I can keep it. Gladly pay the freight for that.

        • Since you’re calling people dumbass, you must be pretty confident in that statement. Please explain to the class what makes you think that.

          Y’know, since the caption says theridgefieldpress.com, and it leads to a story from Ridgefield, Connecticut.

        • You think the picture is from Australia? The cop in the picture is my next door neighbor, and is a Ridgefield cop. I got $250 for a broken Mosin Nagant, and was able to sell them 13 garbage thermold mags for $20 a pop (they cost me $1.50 each a few years back, and they NEVER feed correctly. Jam city!)

          So basically I got $510 for a pile of junk that was taking up space in my safe! My heartfelt thanks to the morons who donated the funds for this effort!

        • And if the officer’s actual neighbor posting here isn’t proof enough, you can plainly see that his patches say Ridgefield, and there’s a CT license plate on the truck in the background. Dumbass.

    • I thought the same thing. They’re a unique, Israeli-style .223 AK and I’ve wanted one for a while. They probably put that rifle on top because it’s the only gun in the pile that isn’t a busted looking 22lr or 12 gauge.

      • Firstest of all, Hello gwammar nazi, I’ve been fighting you fer years. Secondly, if they pay $300 for any working rifle, I hope they allow me time to plan for next year, I can pick up Mosins for under $180 by the truck load, capitalism at work, I’m on my way…

  2. What’s a high-capacity magazine clip? Do the cops know?

    Yeah, I saw the Galil also. I’m pretty sure I saw it first.

    • I think a magazine clip is a small piece of metal intended to hold your periodical printed reading material open to the page you’re reading.

        • i would have bought 5 10/22’s for $250 each, then sold them for $500 each. thats $2,500. that could buy a crate full of mosins, and more ammo than your shoulder would allow you to shoot.

      • Hell, get some new junk at Wally World and sell that.

        Mosins may be old and inexpensive, but they’re cool, solid and there is a finite supply.

        You’d probably sell a ’69 Charger Daytona for scrap.

        :/

  4. $200 for working handguns, that can mean only one thing: time to start cranking out Liberators on the 3D printer and make some money!

    • Reminds me of a “Dilbert” strip from many years ago. In a meeting, the PHB announces a new policy where the company would pay a “bounty” of $xxx for every bug fixed. Wally exclaims (paraphrasing) “woo hoo! I’m gonna code me a new minivan this afternoon!”

      • That’s taken from a real policy that was implemented at a software company. As depicted, bugs proliferated, since they can be as simple as putting a single character in the wrong spot.

  5. Hmmmm, see that dangerous Crosman 760 bb/pellet gun right on the top of the pile? Good buy, along with a few old Winchester single shot .22’s. At least the streets are safe now thanks to these azzclowns.

    • Yeah, I saw the Crossman BB/Pellet gun, Used to have the Daisy version. Such a dangerous weapon off the streets now. I bet it has the shoulder thing that goes up.

  7. Is that a Crossman pellet gun on top?

    Anyhow, there may be some silver lining. Maybe doing this will give the antis enough of a smug fix that at least some of them won’t push for something more harmful.

    • I hate to break it to you, this will not keep them busy for long. Any person who seeks self empowerment by curtailing the freedoms of others will never be satisfied until the world is ashes around them. Some men, Mr. Wayne, just want to watch the world burn.

      • If the world becomes what the progressives and secular humanists want it to become, I will gladly watch it burn…sh*t, I’d even toss the match.

        • Thomas Paine was a secular humanist. Kneeling every weekend is not requisite to being a good American.

          I’m with you on the Great Dream of the Statists.

  8. I think the last time my city did a gun buyback they turned around and auctioned off the ones that worked.

    Fort Myers FL

  9. I was wondering how much they paid for the BB gun. Might make some serious money buying up all the ones walmart has and turning them in.

    • Right on top of the pile, too. OMF’nG. Wonder what I can get for a sooper soaker. Minuteman country is done, stick a fork in ’em. I blame universal suffrage.

      • I’m with you.

        Before a citizen may vote, they should have to pass the same examinations to which we subject immigrants as part of the naturalization process.

        Heck, add the following:

        If they cannot explain a democratic representative constitutional republic, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Tripoli and maybe the Federalist Papers, they should not vote.

  10. That’s why here in sunny constitutional carry Arizona there is a state law that any “gun buybacks” have to be resold!

  12. I’ve never been to a gun buyback but I’m willing to bet that the people who bring guns in to sell or trade or whatever the hell it is they’re doing just kiss continual police ass through the entire transaction.

    blech

    And look at that table, they’re all Fudd guns too. What bullshit.

  14. Something about the name ‘Buy Back’ irks me. Seems to imply they owned them previously at some point.

    • You don’t own your rights, you are just renting them from the government until they take them away.

  15. i would love to sell some junk single shot .22s, get paid a butt load and say “thank you officers, now i can buy that ar-15 i have been saving for. none of the LGS would even accept these .22s. have a nice day.”

  16. Congratulations to “journalist” Steve Coulter. He just graduated college in 2012 and he’s already well on his way to being a smug, condescending little leftist pr1ck. His professors must be so proud.

  18. Give the cops a break. The guy in the picture looks like he’s trying hard not to laugh. They know exactly how stupid this is. But their bosses, including the chiefs – who are no longer cops – play the tune, and they have to dance along.

  19. Shame on you Robert. Who cares what people do with their stuff. “The gun-buy program is funded through private donations.” No taxes involved. In reality, who are you or anyone else to tell other people what to do with their stuff. That is bad as the Government.

    • Did those donations pay for the police time and cost, nope!

      They have a hard enough time catching the bad guys, and you want them doing this useless BS, geez!

    • Hear hear.

      If I could get $300 for an old Crossman BB gun, I’d be all over it. I’d be at every Walmart and sporting goods store within 50 miles buying everything they had so that I could sell them to the “private donors” at a 6x markup.

      To paraphrase a movie song… “Capitalism, F*** YEAH!”

    • He objects to the propaganda play that “buybacks” are, and the occasional pointless destruction of some very cool stuff.

    • Who cares? I care. I realize it’s their stuff, but when they’re getting fleeced by getting a pittance for guns that could be worth 3-4x more on the retail market, I think they should know. I realize that’s not the case here.

      Also, as others have pointed out, though in this case the money to pay for the guns came from private donations, the taxpayers are still paying for the cops to be there.

  20. “Despite the program’s success, Captain Ryan said 111 pistol permits have been processed this year and there are 120 permits pending, which means there are still plenty of guns in town.”

    That could be a carefully worded, optimistic statement that guns in Коннектикут are down, but not out.

    Innocent until proven grabber, eh?

  21. Since Chief Roche and his city have openly admitted that these were firearms were previously owned by them, the BATFE should open a full investigation into any illegal transfer of weapons that occurred by his agencies. Given the number of weapons, he should also be checked out to make sure he and his agency old the appropriate FFL.

  22. I would have turned in my kid’s Cricket in a heartbeat for $300, and I would have cleaned out the local BigBoxMart of theirs too! That would have been a tidy little profit.

  23. ok so… pmags are 12.95 each at my local gunshop….they are paying 20………….. hrrmmmmmmmm

    • I’m surprised that LGS owners and other gun owners didn’t show up with Mosin’s by the crate full. This is beyond stupidity and an example of how people love wasting money when it’s not their own.

        • Well I understand your point of view but $4000 profit per cosmoline soaked MN crate is pretty damn tempting.

          The best part would be a follow-up TV press conference telling the public how stupid their city leaders are. Would be a great time to mention the overtime and pension expenses coming out of taxpayer pockets.

  24. Gee, I wonder what happens to the ‘picks of the litter’?Hmmm ,do ya think they’re going to film the destruction? “Golly Bob did ya see the Chief’s and Commanders Gun Collection? They must have gotten raises cause they just added a BUNCH of new guns to their collections.In fact I heard they sold a bunch of them too! Must be nice.”

  25. Ridgefield is a very affluent town not too far from Newtown (20 miles or so). I guess those limo liberals have a lot of crappy firearms lying around.

  26. Will the flubber-lipped doofs suggesting the mass slaughter of Mosins please shut the fu¢k up before some sub-moron takes their advice to heart?

    Yeah, they’re inexpensive but they’re not cheap. They’re also historic, great weapons and inexpensive to feed.

    Importantly, there is a finite supply. Yes, there are many — but mine ain’t going anywhere so the next bloke will have to get hs own. And the next.

    An early step in Britain’s national suicide was dumping rifles into the ocean and using them as REBAR in sidewalks.

    Shall we follow their example?

    Sickening.

    • You think to small. This would be a great smackdown of the gun buy backs if done properly.

      1) Make $4000 profit on a cosmoline soaked MN crate.
      2) Walk outside the event and hold a TV press conference telling the public how stupid their city leaders are. Would be a great time to mention the overtime and pension expenses coming out of taxpayer pockets.
      3) Also a good time to mention how they are crushing history of a gun that liberated Russia from Nazis.

      • …although I’d admit that the same point could be made with a half dozen Crickets

        If something as stupid as this occured in my neck of the woods I’d do it in a heartbeat. Pretty unlikely in NC though…. however I’m only minutes away from Commie Chapel Hill.

      • You make a valid point, but the pain is severe.

        Damn, protecting 2A may eventually take as much blood, tears and pain — and cosmoline — as were required to win it in the first pace.

        Freedom sure as fu¢k ain’t free.

      • The Mosin helped the Red Army fight the Nazis. But you have to have a pretty strange definition of “liberate” to believe a free society is what the Russians went home to.

  27. There was a least one guy who reported on a gun forum that he he turned in a bunch of HK91 mags he purchased for $4 & rec’d $20 each for them. Someone else spoke with a member of Ridgefield PD (prior to the event) who said they intended to redirect people to a dealer if they were intent on disposing of something collectible (M1 Garand or some such).

    It should also be noted that some poor misguided soul donated the money for the ‘compensated confiscation”, so I assume the only taxpayer money spent was the officer’s salaries to be at this boondoggle.

    • These buybacks are ripe for doing some pro-2A action by doing somea very public profiteering and then a TV press conference. Our group should be on the lookout for an upcoming event like this CT event with a similar rich payout and be the first 5 or 10 people in line with a half dozen MN’s and crickets that were bought the previous day. You want to video tape the purchases also so you can edit some video of the easy profiteering at taxpayer expense. Show the buy and then the subsequent resell at the buyback. Do it with different people at Walmarts, Cabela’s, and LGS’s and maybe doing it as a group to show the ease of profiteering. You could essentially have the video pre-edited the night before of the buys and then drop in video of the buyback money on a laptop the following morning and provide video to the local TV stations. As soon as you get the buyback money in hand, call all the TV stations with a juicy sounding storyline and hold a TV conference at the entrance of buyback and waving all the money around. Extra kudo’s if you donate the buyback profits to the NRA, GOA, or some similar organization. Or vice-versa then go out and buy some AR’s with the money. You could also compound the profiteering by organizing with a couple LGS’s. For instance you could have a LGS promise that they would buyback the MN’s from you if somehow the buyback refused your MN’s (or maybe some reduced charges for BGC’s)

      Once again we should be on the lookout for a target rich buyback.

    • ” so I assume the only taxpayer money spent was the officer’s salaries to be at this boondoggle.”

      I’d bet that those salaries would add up into the “thousands of dollars” if you do the accounting and that would be all you’d need to say at the TV press conference. i.e…..”this event cost the taxpayers THOUSANDS of dollars for dubious results…..

  28. Reminds me of last night’s episode of “Under the Dome” and it’s “voluntary confiscation”…until one man refused.

  29. “The weapons came from people in town that didn’t know what to do with them or that didn’t want to bother with registering them under the new state gun laws.

    Chief Roche said rifles and shotguns were the most popular weapons that were purchased.

    So, in other words, CT’s restrictive new gun laws are having the intended effect of harrassing the law-abiding into giving up guns that were unlikely to be used in a crime?

  30. Good grief…if there were indeed 3 automatic weapons turned in by one guy…that guy is an idiot. Could have gotten $10K+ apiece!

  32. WOW, A SPAS-12. less than 1850 made it into the country before the BAN of 1994 on imports and in 2000 the factory killed the production of them forever. A collectors dream and even fewer now. Those shotguns are going to be 10k each at this rate of destruction.

  33. Galil is preban therefor you can go on armslist and pick one up and have it shipped to your FFL. Legally and lawfully. Thanks maloy!

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