Many thanks to Daisy for her comment the other day about this. I wasn't sure if I wanted to get into it, but here goes.
I've often mentioned my wish, unrealistic as it may be, to reduce the number of guns in America by half. Faulting the Tennessee Police for having put these two high-profile weapons back on the streets and requiring all confiscated guns to be destroyed or retained would certainly further that goal, yet, I can't join with the gun control voices who are screaming about this one. The fault is not with the police agencies whose policy it is to sell confiscated guns.
The weakness in the system is further down the line where the gun passes from legitimate owner to criminal. Many of our other discussions are about this. In this particular issue I feel that to focus on the police policy of selling guns and ignoring the other steps in the passage of guns from the good guys to the bad guys, is an ass-backwards approach which will have little beneficial effect. Although, generally speaking, I would be glad to see any restrictions on the flow of guns, I definitely don't think this one would do much good.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
I agree, MikeB, at least on the first part. There is no sense destroying something valuable when it could be sold.
ReplyDeleteI bought a Police trade in handgun once. I then practically gave it away to a cop that needed a duty gun. You see, his department was too poor to buy new guns so their officers had to supply their own. I doubt they would be destroying something they could sell and raise money with. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't recycle them back out with their cops.
Almost all of my guns are either police trade-in's or police surplus imported from overseas.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good way for the Dept's to make money as well.
If you believe that guns are evil, and they whisper into their owner’s ear to do bad things, then yeah, those guns should be destroyed. The ironic thing is that those who hate guns and want to see them destroyed generally hate the gun industry. If one more used gun is available to public that is one less new gun for a manufacturer to produce. The only way for their “destroy the guns” mentality to have any effect is after they’ve banned the sale of new guns.
ReplyDelete-TS