U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- Gun turn-in events, labeled with the Orwellian term “buyback” are making a small comeback in the United States. Most of them are occurring in states where private sales are not allowed by law. They are not occurring in states which require the valuable property to be sold for the public’s benefit.
Illinois has a version of the law that requires private sales to go through the state website, identify the purchaser of the firearms with a Firearms Owner Identification (FOID), and be assigned an approval number. This eliminates privacy from private sales. It becomes unworkable for private purchasers to buy guns legally at gun turn-in events.
At the Evanston, Illinois event, 53 guns were turned in on December 4, 2021. From wgntv.com:
EVANSTON, Ill. — Evanston police held a gun buyback event on Saturday, just days after a shooting left four people wounded and one dead.
“It gets the guns off the street. Whether it’s one gun or five, today we had 53. It gets the guns off the street,” interim police chief Aretha Barnes said.
Today, citizens were given $100 for each gun and $25 for ammunition. The gun buyback began nine years ago.
“I’m a lifetime 5th Ward Evanston resident and I was concerned about the gun violence I was experiencing in the neighborhood, so I was planning to do a gun buyback,” organizer Carolyn Murray said.
The best academic study of these events shows they do not reduce homicide, gun crimes, or suicide. There is a small but statistically significant increase in crimes committed with guns in the two months after the event.
These events are propaganda, street theater, virtue signaling; they are symbolic, not pragmatic.
They are meant to send the message: Guns are bad. Turn them into the Police.
Eight of the 53 guns shown as turned in at the Evanston event were BB guns, CO2 guns, or spring-powered air guns. Presumably, the people who turned them in received $100 for each of them.
Private purchasers at gun turn-in events eliminate the propaganda value of these events. They show the opposite message:
Guns are good. We pay cash.
Private purchasers buy guns that are worth more than what the organizers of the event are willing to pay. It is a way for ignorant owners of guns, who want them out of their house, to get a closer approximation of what the gun is worth.
An original military-stocked 1903 Springfield rifle may have been turned in at the event (upper right corner). It could be worth several hundred dollars to a collector. Several other firearms worth hundreds of dollars each were turned in. They include what appear to be Glock handguns, a Remington model 11 shotgun, a pair of antique 7-shot .22 revolvers, a near-new .22 lever action rifle, and others.
If the motive of the organizers were to “get guns off the street”, they would welcome private purchasers. Private purchasers would stretch their money, moving guns from unwanted hands into the hands of responsible owners.
There was no indication of private buyers at the Evanston event. It appears the Illinois law worked to prevent private sales.
Ideally, the organizers of these events would sell the guns they obtain in ordinary commercial channels, then use the money to buy more guns from people who do not want them.
Moving guns from unwanted hands into responsible hands is not the intent. Destruction of the valuable property appears to meet an emotional need. Organizers want to shift responsibility for bad events from people to inanimate objects.
When faced with the option of selling the guns or not having a turn-in “buyback” event, organizers choose not to have the event.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
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Merry Christmas! Grumpy
Springfield Armory is proud to announce the release of the new Operator 1911, an all-black pistol with some stainless steel highlights and machined G10 Army Green Alien grips by VZ.
“Springfield Armory 1911 pistols are renowned for their performance, strength and capabilities,” said Springfield Vice President Steve Kramer. “With this new Operator, shooters get a duty-grade 1911 with the features they expect from a premiere fighting pistol.”
Chambered for .45 ACP, the Operator feeds from slightly extended 8-round bumper magazines, and it comes with a very modern set of upgrades and features that really make this a “duty-grade” 1911.
The slide has classy, straight serrations front and rear, with small engravings on the sides that read “Operator” on the left side and “Springfield Armory” with the logo on the right. As far as controls go the Operator has extended ambidextrous safety levers and an extended beavertail grip safety with a memory button.
It also comes with a skeletonized, adjustable medium-length trigger with a serrated trigger face and a skeletonized hammer for a fast, accurate lock-up. Every operator is built around a 5-inch match-grade, hammer-forged stainless steel barrel and they use a conventional G.I.-style bushing and recoil assembly.
For sights, the Operator uses a tritium-powered front night sight and a tactical ledge-style white dot rear sight. Every Operator has a matte black Cerakote finish on the slide, frame, and small components and they all ship with two 8-round magazines.
The Operator was designed and built from the ground up to be a hard-working pistol for self-defense, with features that will make it perform just as well at the range. It’s also an all-around good-looking 1911, in a fully modern layout that doesn’t cut corners.
With a suggested retail price of $1,099, it’s likely that shoppers will be able to find the Operator in stores and online for $999 or less. For more information about the new Operator along with the rest of the Springfield catalog, head over there today.
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The Franchi LF58
The Franchi LF-58 is a gas operated, selective fire carbine that was the product of Italian domestic arms design after the Second World War and during the 1950s.
Development
Following the end of the Second World War, the Italian Armed Forces were equipped with weapons donated and/or sold to them by the United States of America, such as the M1 Garand, as their main service rifle. However, as there were other militaries beginning to develop assault rifles and modern battle rifles, both with larger magazine capacities and increased volumes of fire, the Italians naturally pushed for a more modern service weapon.
The M1 Carbine was well-liked among various Italian military circles and the development of the German StG-44 assault rifle chambered in the intermediate 7.92x33mm Kurz cartridge had already given several militaries notice. The Italians[who?] decided to design a select-fire weapon chambered in the American .30 Carbine round, being close enough to an intermediate cartridge and easier to acquire than others at the time.
Two large Italian arms firms, Pierto Beretta and Luigi Franchi, then began experimental work on improved automatic carbines chambered in the American .30 Carbine cartridge. Despite NATO announcing standardization towards the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge, the firms continued development under the belief that it would take some time for the NATO cartridge to come into widespread use.
Both firms developed service rifles to adhere to NATO’s standards. Both designs were finished in 1958, resulting in the Beretta Model 57 and the Franchi LF-58 (which was not publicized). Both designs saw limited production and neither official adoption nor commercial success. The Italian Armed Forces then replaced the M1 Garand with the BM-59 battle rifle in 7.62x51mm NATO and the LF-57 submachine gun chambered in 9x19mm Parabellum
I had coffee recently with a friend of mine, a retired FBI agent. We were talking about the mess the FBI has become. He’s even more disturbed about the politicization of the bureau than I am. During our talk he said something very interesting: “Current agents are just keeping their heads down and following orders.” A simple statement with profound implications.
Jobs in law enforcement are fundamentally different than other jobs. That difference is the oath that all law enforcement officers swear. The FBI oath states:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
All federal, state, and local law enforcement officials swear something similar.
Certainly, following lawful orders is important, but notice that there is nothing mentioned about obedience to leadership. That’s because following orders is between the officers and their leaders. Upholding their oath is between them and us, the American people. We expect them to make judgements about right and wrong, and the oath is their assurance that they will do so conscientiously.
Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/12/does_a_law_enforcement_oath_mean_anything_anymore.html#ixzz7G2VS6tPw
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All law enforcement officers, including FBI agents, who are “just following orders” are missing the point of their oath. They may be bound by agency rules to follow orders, but they are bound by sacred honor to remain faithful to the American people.
There’s a reason why people in law enforcement are required to place their honor on the line for the citizens they serve. No other occupation is allowed to detain, sometimes with restraints, another person solely based on their word that it’s justified. A cop can pull over a car, administer a sobriety test, handcuff the driver, and arrest him if he’s found to be impaired. No citizen who has not sworn the oath can do such a thing.
We grant the police the awesome powers of the state. In exchange, they promise to not abuse those powers. They promise to serve the public, as prescribed in the Constitution. That promise takes precedence over orders. So long as their leadership directs their activities consistent with the Constitution, there’s no problem. But when leadership directs them to do something counter to the Constitution — like ordering them to violate someone’s civil liberties — such orders are unlawful. An officer’s oath, whether he be a police officer or an FBI agent, is a promise to assess the constitutionality of all orders before blindly obeying them.
And yet we’ve seen widespread infractions of that promise across the range of law enforcement. Churchgoers have been cited or even arrested for failing to comply with closure orders. Worship is a basic human right guaranteed by the 1st Amendment. There is no pandemic exception in the Constitution. Federal and local officials have no authority to order such closures. Orders for police to enforce the closures were unlawful. Yet, far too many cops simply followed their orders.
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” has been affirmed by the courts to include property rights. No government official can take or lower the value of your property without due process and appropriate compensation. Yet some businesses have been ordered closed, rendering them worthless. Police have been charged with enforcing the closures, and they’ve done it. An untold number of American citizens have lost their businesses and even their life savings, simply because the police “followed orders.”
Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/12/does_a_law_enforcement_oath_mean_anything_anymore.html#ixzz7G2VFhyeL
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The FBI has dispatched agents to identify and question anyone in attendance at the January 6 protest — ostensibly to identify the person who placed bombs outside the DNC and RNC headquarter buildings. However, there are no reports that everyone in the surrounding neighborhoods have been questioned. Why are peaceful protesters presumed to have seen something just because they were in the same city on the same day? Have members of Congress been questioned? They were in the city too. Are the agents really investigating? Or are they just letting the protesters know: We know you were there. To have agents show up at one’s door has the effect of chilling freedom of assembly and political expression — a 1st Amendment violation. We don’t know how many agents have refused to comply, but we know that a great many have not refused.
Project Veritas has been in the news lately because the FBI raided the homes of its leader, James O’Keefe, and a number his reporters. The FBI even seized working documents, and is alleged to have leaked them to other news agencies. That is also a 1st Amendment violation. The courts have interceded to constrain the FBI, but it should have been stopped by the agents before it even happened.
Parents have been arrested for protesting at school-board meetings. The arresting officers weren’t even responding to the orders of their superiors. They were complying with a request from the school board itself. So now a private citizen can demand that another private citizen be arrested for saying something they don’t like, and the police comply without even questioning it? As disturbing as that is, it gets even worse. The FBI has created “tags” in its tracking database to track this constitutional behavior as possible instances of domestic terrorism. That is a violation of citizens’ rights to free speech, assembly, and due process — the 1st and 4th Amendments.
We have even observed the FBI interfering in the peaceful transition of power following an election. Crossfire Hurricane was the FBI’s “insurance policy” against a Trump presidency. That’s not my terminology. “Insurance policy” is the term Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok used to describe his plan to use the power of the FBI to prevent Trump from being elected, and to interfere with his administration if he was elected anyway. That plot was confirmed by FBI lawyer Lisa Page in sworn congressional testimony. It was a blatant attempt by our “public servants” to prevent an electoral outcome they found undesirable — and reverse the election if it didn’t go the way they wanted it to.
Compliance with an officer’s oath can involve personal risk. To refuse an order from one’s superior carries the risk of seriously damaging — or even ending — an officer’s career. But the thing is, they’ve already promised us that they would make that sacrifice on our behalf. That’s the deal they strike with the public to be in law enforcement.
If their oath no longer binds them, how does that change our relationship with law enforcement? If their sworn word no longer means what it says, how can we believe them the next time they swear to tell the “truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” in court? When an officer assures us that they made an arrest for sound reasons, are they standing for justice, or using their authority for personal or political gain? If their oath is meaningless, they become no more credible than the person they’ve placed under arrest.
Far too many law-enforcement officers, FBI agents included, have demonstrated that they are no longer agents of the Constitution. At best, they’re just employees doing as told. Their oath has become an irrelevant formality. Given that, why should we continue to vest them with the authority of the state? For one reason, and one reason only, it’s a dangerous world. We need police organizations to maintain order. But we need them to be better than they have been, so that order does not become tyranny.
John Green is a political refugee from Minnesota, now residing in Idaho. He currently writes at the American Free News Network (afnn.us). He can be followed on Facebook or reached at greenjeg@gmail.com.
Image: US Marshals Office of Public Affairs
Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/12/does_a_law_enforcement_oath_mean_anything_anymore.html#ixzz7G2V1OGyZ
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