Lynchburg Paper Says Gun Buyback Efforts Best Left With Localities

The Lynchburg News and Advance editorialized yesterday that the decision to hold a compensated gun confiscation (gun buybacks) is best left to local governments. If local governments were interested in doing what in the best interest of taxpayers I might agree but that simply is not the case. How else can you explain that a local government would use taxpayer money to support a scheme that there in no empirical evidence supporting its success?

But as Governor Kaine's staff said earlier this week, "it is irrelevant what is the evidence..." it's what Tim Kaine, and apparently anti-rights local governments, think that count.

But what is even more disturbing, the News and Advance editors apparently don't care about facts either because when writing about the veto, they repeated the falsehood put out by Kaine - that HB2528 "would have required that firearms recovered in gun buyback programs be sold by public auction or by sealed bids to a licensed gun dealer" This simply is not true and all the News and Advance, as well as Kaine's staff had to do was read the bill. The version of HB2528 that passed would simply make it clear that one means available to localities is to sell the guns taken in at "buybacks" is to sell them to an FFL.

When writing about the important part of the bill that did survive - the part that places some much needed sunshine on these schemes by requiring localities to pass an ordinance allowing them to hold a buyback, the News and Advance writes:

The latter provision would have created a bureaucratic requirement aimed at
discouraging gun buyback programs, which have proven effective over the years in
getting guns off the streets and out of houses where people don’t want
them.

So, let me get this right - when a news organization howls because it no longer can get the information on concealed handgun permit (CHP) holders, that's bad because the public has a right to know. But when the taxpayers want to know whether the hard earned money they are forced to fork over is being put to use in ways that actually reduce crime, that's bad.

Because that is exactly what the provision requiring passing an ordinance does. Localities have to post public notice when they want to enact a new ordinance and apparently the lords of the manor don't want their subjects to know how they are spending our money.

Oh, and for gun owners who live in the Lynchburg area - you might be interested to that the Lynchburg Police Department, the Lynchburg Police Foundation and Churches United for Service are planning such a compensated gun confiscation scheme with the first event being held on April 25 at 301 Grove St.

As an enticement to participate, each person who turns in a gun will be given a chance to win a retired police cruiser that has been restored by Lynchburg Transmissions.

The News and advance reports that Police Foundation President Curtis Roberts said the groups are looking for other businesses in the city to join in the effort to spruce up the car for the lucky ticket holder.

Isn't that ironic - if the idea is to get "illegal guns" off the street through a "buyback" one presumes the owner of an "illegal gun" is a criminal. And one lucky criminal could when a refurbished police car as a prize.