USA – -(Ammoland.com)-“City leaders considering gun buyback program,” NBCs Indiana affiliate WFIE News 14, Evansville, “reports.” It’s one of those vapid and manipulative pieces that are a staple of local affiliates masking an agenda while trying to appear crusading and relevant.
The “city leader” in question is Councilman Jonathan Weaver, who thinks he can stage such a media event for around $115K. Per the television report, he asserts it’s the type of thing “bigger cities like St. Louis have tried successfully.”
Would that be the St. Louis where “a … letter went out to more than 200 other families of people who were killed … during the most violent year the city has seen in more than 20 years”?
Weaver got his brainstorm after some “recent shootings in Evansville.” Gang shootings.
We find 14 out of 19 Evansville murder victims were killed by felons with firearms, people already prohibited by law from possessing guns. And with headlines like “Victim dies after being shot during drug-deal robbery,” you’ve got to ask yourself if there may be more effective options than trying to be like St. Louis.
How Weaver can keep a straight face claiming an idiot “buyback” event will have any impact on gangs doing their thing is left unsaid. That’s because it can’t and he knows it. But being an opportunistic Democrat, he knows plenty of politicians manage to get ink in the local papers and face time on local newscasts spouting such nonsense. “Reporters” on an easy assignment their bosses approve of won’t rock the boat with hard questions and will parrot talking points to an audience that for the most part knows even less than they do.
So News 14 viewers will likely never hear how the National Institute of Justice’s “Summary of Select Firearm Violence Prevention Strategies” concluded:
“Evidence: Gun buybacks are ineffective as generally implemented. 1. The buybacks are too small to have an impact. 2. The guns turned in are at low risk of ever being used in a crime. 3. Replacement guns are easily acquired. Unless these three points are overcome, a gun buyback cannot be effective.”
Nor will viewers who don’t go looking for themselves learn about the problems that “no questions asked” and other “buyback” absurdities can create. Or how such events actually increase the chances for danger and lawbreaking…
Since when is it “commonsense gun safety” to tempt people who may not be familiar with how to handle a gun to pick one up and transport it? Does a widow who found her late husband’s handgun know how to make sure it’s really unloaded, and to do so if it’s not? Does she know removing a magazine doesn’t necessarily mean there’s not one in the chamber? Or not to touch the trigger…? Or how to safely and legally transport a firearm…?
Isn’t it beyond irresponsible to lure such people with gift certificates and the like?
Don’t expect Weaver to address that. He’s too busy following up his “buyback” boondoggle plan by wasting even more tax plunder on “helping” to push for Shotspotter in the 2019 budget. That’s the technology that, per a recent Forbes analysis, “alerts police to lots of gunfire, but produces few tangible results.”
But again, it doesn’t matter, because Weaver gets to take credit for another “accomplishment” on his campaign website as well as get his name favorably mentioned by cheerleader media.
And for someone with political ambitions, Weaver needs all the favorable media mentions he can get. That’s because it wasn’t even a year ago when he was getting headlines for criminal invasion of privacy charges over violating a restraining order filed in relation to his divorce. And while the County Prosecutor filed a motion to dismiss the charges in June, he made a point of adding circumstances were such that he did so “without prejudice, meaning that it could be refiled in the future.”
And then there’s a protective order naming Jonathan Weaver that is currently posted on the State of Indiana’s Court Information Technology Extranet. How that affects his status is unclear, but it would also appear that question 11.h. on ATF Form 4473 could be problematic for the councilman.
Whether it should be a disqualifier is something some would debate. After all, it’s no secret that divorces can be messy, ex-partners can be spiteful and all Americans are entitled to due process. Imposing a disability on a fundamental, Constitutionally-enumerated right before being convicted of a qualifying crime ought to trouble all of us.
Then again, the guy’s a Democrat politician and he’s out there advancing himself and taking advantage of media exposure by getting citizens to turn in their guns under the pretext that it will help alleviate gang murders. He’ll probably see the event happen, too, and get plenty more brainless media coverage for “doing something” about “gun violence.”
If the “city leaders” play it right, they may even get to wow giddy reporters by “taking a bazooka off the streets.”
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.
In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.